Vandalism cases on the rise
Vandalism, specifically graffiti, is on the rise at USU and in Cache Valley in general, said patrol officer Sutton Hanzalik of the USU Police Department. Tagging, stenciling and even using ketchup or dry-erase markers are all forms of graffiti that have been found recently by university police.
“This is the first year where we’ve really been hit like we have in the last month and a half,” Hanzalik said. “I went to our last gang meeting a couple weeks ago and they’re up dramatically.”
Hanzalik, the USUPD liaison to the Logan City Police gang task force, said a lot of the graffiti seen on campus is not gang-related. Most of the recent tags are references to social media sites.
A lot of these sites are new and not as broad as Facebook, he said. They are geared towards specific preferences to things such as sneakers, rap music and street art.
“All the people that are getting caught right now are still the young kids,” Hanzalik said. “They’re not 20- or 30-year-olds, they’ve grown out of it. Most of the kids are just trying to get noticed.”
Capt. Steve Milne of USUPD said nine occurrences of graffiti have been reportedalready in 2011, compared to the total of 12 that occurred in all of 2010. Last week he was notified that the f-word was spray-painted on the Business Building and on an air-conditioning unit atop the Lillywhite Building.
Some buildings on campus have exterior roof access, Hanzalik said, but others are only accessible from the inside of the building.
“It’s not just the police that are here trying to protect the property, it’s every student kind of has a responsibility.” Milne said. “The problem is it destroys property, it takes time and funding and resources away from something else. I bet you a lot of people have either seen something going on, or know or heard somebody talking about it, and that’s the information we need coming in to us.”
Graffiti is a part of rebellion for young people, Hanzalik said. The respect for other people’s personal property has been lost over the last 20-25 years, he said, and the community needs to work with police to change things.
“There’s no way (police) can be somewhere 24-7,” Hanzalik said. “If you look at inner-cities, any inner-city that has changed in a positive way, it’s come through the community. It didn’t come through law enforcement.”
Milne said graffiti is a form of vandalism, which is classified as criminal mischief. If caught, the perpetrator is charged with at least a class-B misdemeanor and the penalty goes up depending on how much damage is incurred.
A more obvious form of vandalism – outright destruction of property – also occurs somewhat frequently on campus, Milne said. On March 29, Starr Christensen, a resident assistant at Snow Hall, called university police to notify them that three windows were damaged on the ground floor of the building.
“I don’t know the monetary amount of damage,” Christensen said. “It was enough that they had to replace the glass, it made the rooms colder and it made the residents feel a lot less safe, which the most valuable thing is my residents’ safety.”
She said the incident occurred around 3 a.m., according to the women who reported hearing a loud bang in the middle of the night. Christensen said the residents assumed it was just neighbors being noisy.
A lot of people are not aware of what qualifies as vandalism, Christensen said. Recently she found out that someone’s car had a half-gallon of milk dumped on it and had a sign attached to it reading “shit happens.”
“Multiple residents have told me their cars have been egged in the Snow Hall parking lot,” Christensen said. “The same night the windows were broken, I assume it was the same night, somebody took chalk and wrote on the east side walls.”
She said often residents report things too late and she cannot call university police or write an incident report because the evidence has already been destroyed.
Milne said any time graffiti or vandalism occurs, facilities employees are responsible for the cleaning and/or replacement. If a suspect is caught and found guilty, they are required to pay for the damage.
“I do encourage all of my residents to tell me all about any vandalism that they hear about,” Christensen said. “A lot of them don’t give any kind of thought to it until something bad happens and that’s one thing that I have a problem with.”
In the past, the “French fries” sculpture between the Biology-Natural Resources and Agricultural Science buildings has had ketchup squirted on it, Milne said. A tree near the Eccles Science Learning Center was found with more than 20 pairs of men’s underwear hanging from it.
“No one wants to narc on anybody, no one wants to get involved but everybody wants it to stop,” Hanzalik said. “I think a lot of times we’ve always been such a safe community, you see a bunch of kids out there, you’re really not thinking anything of it.”
– daniel.whitney.smith@aggiemail.usu.edu