West Seattle Crime Watch: Another Junction mural vandalized

| Crime | West Seattle history | West Seattle news | WS culture/arts

The photo is from Nancy, reporting that another of the 25+-year-old murals in The Junction has been vandalized: “I wake up each morning to look at this awesome mural and this morning when I pulled up the blinds, this is what I saw. How disappointing.” The mural on the parking-lot-facing north side of the building at 4520 44th SW depicts a scene at the swimming hole that preceded Colman Pool on the shore at Lincoln Park; the vandalism is tagging done in white paint on the swimming-hole midsection of the mural. This is one of the murals that community volunteers hope to be able to restore, with an ongoing fundraising campaign. Meantime, the West Seattle Junction Association has been made aware of the vandalism, and we will follow up next week.

Cid March 3, 2019 (7:15 am)

Taggers come off as so pathetic… destroying someone else’s creation because you are not in the least creative. How could you be proud of this?

HS March 3, 2019 (7:46 am)

WS Realtor March 3, 2019 (8:05 am)

So disappointed. I wish I could better understand what motivates these “taggers”. Are they young people, without good sense? are they trying to send a message? trying to mark their territory? Do we need to provide an acceptable place for them to tag, like actually provide a black wall space on one of our buildings for them?

H March 3, 2019 (12:46 pm)

@WS Realtor, it is my understanding that “tags” are a gang activity. They mark territory and go hand in hand with crime and drug sales. If I recall, there has been a weird upswing in street robbery around that area, by youths, and recently a young man was viciously attacked and beaten, again by other youths. You can do further research by searching for the Seattle Gang Unit.
- WSB March 3, 2019 (1:31 pm)
  
  Several myths about tagging have come up here. We have covered several police briefings/Q&A appearances over the years. Most tagging/graffiti vandalism is NOT gang-related, and most is NOT by juveniles. Debunked right off the top of this:
  https://westseattleblog.com/2013/03/graffiti-demystified-west-seattle-crime-prevention-council/
  
  P.S. What to do about graffiti/tagging vandalism
  http://www.seattle.gov/police/need-help/graffiti
Alex S. March 4, 2019 (12:19 pm)

What motivates these (young white male) taggers is a sense of entitlement, self-indulgence and a desperate need to have attention paid to them, especially in the era of social media. Just go to Instagram and search hashtags like #seattlegraffiti or #nwgraffiti (or google those terms to view on desktop). You will quickly discover that these boys really really really needed their daddies’ attention back in 2013. In fact, they have created an entire subculture around dysfunctional and failed family life. Not fixing it, of course – just wallowing in it. There seems to be an endless supply of narcissistic taggers with plenty of resources to afford $15 cans of designer paint; so the only way to mitigate this problem is for our barely-competent city and state governments (along with property owners) to PROMPTLY CLEAN IT UP.
- WW Resident March 4, 2019 (3:55 pm)
  
  You must be omniscient to know all that about the taggers, even down to skin color

Kathy March 3, 2019 (10:01 am)

I am utterly disgusted and so mad that there are people in this city who feel it’s okay to continue to destroy property with their selfish, childish, incredibly rude and distasteful acts of destruction. If you are one of these people, stop it!!! If you want to destroy property, destroy your own stuff! And make sure other people and their generous efforts are not affected by your thoughtless and careless ways of being in the world. Grow up already!

Taxes = police March 3, 2019 (10:39 am)

I am utterly disgusted and so mad that there are people in this city who feel it’s okay to continue to not pay income tax! We need police! Grow up already!

WW Resident March 4, 2019 (4:16 am)

You obviously don’t understand the shell game we call our city, county, and state government. You really have no idea how wasteful our government is. I had an idea, but did not know the extent until I started working a government job and first hand the waste

Howard March 3, 2019 (11:18 am)

If only we could afford cameras!

anonyme March 3, 2019 (11:28 am)

There must be cameras all around that area. Tagging should always be reported to police as a way to monitor gang activity. Hope the perp is caught and made to do some seriously nasty community service cleanup work.

Jon Wright March 3, 2019 (11:51 am)

Singapore has the right idea.

C March 4, 2019 (2:15 pm)

On the other hand, maybe we could try and help these people. Like the kind humans we are.
Lynn March 4, 2019 (11:57 pm)

JonLol! I half agree with you.I am from that part of the world. Vandalism is greeted with caning (thanks to cultural hand me down from the British Empire). Its pretty severe and in my opinion doesn’t match the “crime” of vandalism. Its pretty brutal! On the other hand, Singapore doesn’t have an issue with their youth vandalizing public property. Its usually done by foreigners who don’t think the penalty will actually be carried out. Talking about Michael Fay.

KD March 3, 2019 (12:45 pm)

Not too long ago I caught 3 taggers in the middle of the night doing major tag damage on a building at Airport Way and Lander, a gal and two guys. Could not believe their approximate ages.. about mid-20’s! You’re right.. grow up!!

D.C. March 3, 2019 (2:20 pm)

We need income tax to have police? Why isn’t the $5.9 BILLION budget not enough? You think the city needs even MORE money, so let’s add income taxes?Boston is similar to seattle in size (slightly more people) and has a budget of $3.1 Billion. So maybe someone can explain to me why Seattle has a budget that is nearly DOUBLE that of Boston, yet still doesn’t have enough money?

WSB March 3, 2019 (2:55 pm)

Before you perpetuate the “Boston’s budget is smaller than Seattle’s!” complaint, note that it’s not apples to apples. Different cities fund different services. For example, schools are part of Boston’s city budget, not Seattle’s. So what does Seattle do that Boston doesn’t? Quick look shows, electricity provision, for one. I don’t have time for an in-depth analysis but I’ve covered municipal governments for 35 years and can tell you that what they do and don’t provide varies widely per region, so you can’t just say “city X has Y people and city Z has Y people so their budgets should be the same”… TR

https://budget.boston.gov/operating-budget/

MJ March 3, 2019 (6:11 pm)

Whatever happened to the code, do not tamper with art by others. Hopefully the perpetrator(s) gets caught and is made to pay for this act, community service cleaning up tagged walls comes to mind.