Revisiting Graffiti

I’ll get to graffiti in a minute.  But first, Officer Kipp Strong attended our community meeting May 26. He’s on the Community Police Team, and Pinehurst is in his assigned area. CPT officers don’t respond to 911 calls, but are instead assigned a specific area to focus on long-term, often chronic problems. They patrol many times a day, checking and re-checking known “hot spots”.

It’s their job to know the residents in troubled houses, to recognize by sight regulars who congregate on the corner, and to understand the ongoing problems and concerns of neighbors and businesses. CPT is about understanding ongoing issues that go back weeks and months and taking steps to prevent problems before they arise.

Back to graffiti – We asked Officer Strong what we can do about the graffiti in our neighborhood. He says most of our graffiti  is by high school kids, not gangs. To reduce graffiti he encourages us to let him know about recurring tags. If we email close-up photos of tags to him, he can go to the local schools and work with the administrators to identify the taggers and deal with them. Let’s try it! His email address is kipp.strong@seattle.gov.