Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Draper residents are cleaning up today after vandals went on a "tagging" spree over the weekend. The hardest hit area is near 12700 South and 700 East in Draper.
This is usually a very quiet neighborhood. There isn't a whole lot going on here in the way of crime, so you can imagine people are very frustrated and angry about all this.
A resident posted a message for the taggers saying: "Smile, loser - You're being video taped! Say Cheese! We want pretty mug shots. The least you could have done is have some talent."
Draper police say they haven't seen a tagging spree this bad in quite some time. Most of it was done over the weekend. Hundreds of people attending Draper Days had their chairs vandalized as well. Several walls, private fences and city sidewalks were also tagged.
Some of the residents we spoke to say while most of the graffiti was done this weekend, they've noticed much more graffiti in the neighborhood over the last month. Draper resident David Kammer said, "We don't know, you know, why it's happening, and it is upsetting in that it'll never be as clean as it was before, even though it was washed off."
Much of the graffiti has already been cleaned up, either by residents or Draper City. Police are still investigating, trying to link the vandalism to a specific person or group of people. They say some of the graffiti is very unique, and something they haven't seen before.
Sgt. Gerald Allred, with the Draper City Police Department, said, "Taggers are actually really fast at what they do, but they still have to get there to do it. So, you know, if you see groups of kids or individuals that seem to not be where they should be at certain times of the night, give us a call so we can find out what they're doing."
Some of the residents thought the graffiti was possibly gang related, but police say, at this time, they can't make any sort of connection like that. Police are just asking people who live in this neighborhood to keep their eyes peeled and report anything suspicious.
E-mail: wjohnson@ksl.com
