Rash of graffiti hits Valley

A graffiti outbreak in Spokane Valley has the city’s main corridor looking like a badly tattooed sailor.

The damage, covering more than two miles of Sprague Avenue, has residents worried about gang activity, though deputies say the aerosoled eyesores lack gang characteristics.

“It seems like recently it’s just blown up,” said Shannon McCrillis, a deputy who focuses on gang activity with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office. “But what I’ve seen looks like the same person or small group of persons, not gangs.”

There is a lot of graffiti to see, with about five instances occurring nightly. Members of the Spokane Community Oriented Police Effort spend several hours every morning photographing new vandalism.

“In the last week, these guys are getting up on roofs, scaling the outside of buildings,” said Ken Tadlock, a SCOPE volunteer who photographs the vandalism.

On the roof of the Old Country Buffet overlooking the busy intersection of Pines Road and Sprague Avenue spray-painted letters mar air conditioning units and partition walls. To the south, someone has scaled a vacant building and spray-painted the second-story sign of Spokane Valley Army Surplus.

The damage continues westward on Sprague Avenue for two miles, and it is hard to drive more than a half-block without finding a building that’s been “tagged,” or marked by vandals armed with spray paint.

There are hundreds of examples, many of which line residential streets such as University Avenue and have been painted over. Most of the aerosol scrawl is illegible, so Tadlock has given titles to repeat patterns.

“There is a familiar one,” Tadlock said, pointing to a symbol on the east wall of Fred’s Appliance at Sprague Avenue and University Road. “I call that one butt crack.”

Sure enough, there’s a deep crack dividing two softly curved lobes painted on the side of the appliance business. In the alley of Williams Seafood, less than 30 yards from the appliance store, “butt crack” has struck again.

To the east, someone has tagged the sign in front of the Spokane Valley Fire Department headquarters in front of University City. A half-block farther, a vacant building has just been repainted white after being tagged heavily. The utility boxes on the corner of Sprague and Herald are spray-painted blue. Someone has written “Die Die” on the front doors of the Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Chamber worker Dawn Prentice met Tadlock at the front door Wednesday. She preserved the damage so Tadlock could photograph it for the police.

“I would have washed it off, but I know that tagging is a problem in Spokane Valley,” Prentice said.

Chamber members aren’t talking about graffiti yet, Prentice said. A few more coats of paint might change that, however. Graffiti leaves a bad impression with customers. It’s the first thing Jon Franklin noticed when he stopped to eat at the Denny’s Restaurant on Sprague and Pines. Both the graffiti above County Buffet and Army Surplus are visible from the restaurant.

“It’s one of those things,” Franklin said. “The average person drives through here and they see it’s all painted up. And they walk into Denny’s, and you see the stuff on the paper machine. It gives you the sense that there’s a lot of gang activity.”

In 1979, Franklin retired to Spokane Valley from Los Angeles, where he worked with police trying to snuff graffiti and gang activity. He keeps a can of lacquer thinner and several cans of paint in his car to cover graffiti whenever he sees it. Non-action leads to proliferation, he said. Franklin would like to see the graffiti vandals caught and their families forced to pay to repaint the defaced buildings.

Police are trying to stop the graffiti outbreak. McCrillis encourages victims, as well as anyone with tips about the taggers, to call the University SCOPE at (509) 477-2582.