>> he's facing up to six years in prison. -- he got 4-1/2. so, master grace feet aloe. he he did $10,000 worth of damage to the city. it's kind of funny. think about him being in the department of arizona correctionses. what are you in for? graffiti. [laughter] >> this is so awesome. i tell you another thing, you guys heard at the end, he told me in the interview. he's like, man, i'm glad you got me. why? because i can't stop. why can't you stop? because i'm addicted. i can't stop. why did you start doing grab

pete aloe? well, i used to do drugs and i wanted to stop doing drug. my mom put me in rehab. the day he got out of rehab is the day he started tagging. that's how i found out how he got started. he said it was more and better than a drug. so, when i hear it's an addiction, i'm 100% behind that because everybody i've ever interviewed has told me they're addicted to it and they can't stop. >> [speaker not understood]. >> what's that? >> [speaker not understood]. >> yeah, the whole graffiti diversion program. whatever, i know what it is. i know how it is and that's what i'll attest to for as long as i do this job. but, yeah, he's addicted to it, couldn't stop. man, you should have seen him. he's 27, 28-year old man balling his eyes out to me about how he couldn't stop doing t. he can't stop thinking about it. every day he got up, every day he went outside.

you see the canal they're on there? he he would walk the canal all day back and forth just tagging. >> [speaker not understood]. >> facebook. it started out with facebook and then -- the way we do things first, this is how it all starts. i always see jugs come across my desk time and time again. i keep a little log for myself every year of all the taggers that come through. see jugs, put it down. see whoever, put it down. then when i start seeing it more and more then i start going into it and start trying to do some intel on it. hey, man, you know who jugs is? it pops up. then after i find out who jugs is and kind of know who he is, i start oozing graffiti tracker. graffiti tracker shows me where he's hitting. guess where i saw it? all down that canal. so, we sat and watched him. like i said, he went into the circle-k. as he's going down to the circle-k from his mobile home, we had a whole crap load from

where his mobile home. we knew where he worked and crap load of where he went to circle-k. come back this way, walk, walk wake, up and down. this is where it was. we sat on him, watched him, tagged up a couple srp boxes which is electrical box on the way up to circle k, went inside, stole some beer, that's how we got him arrested. while he was arrested, that's when we started talking about the grab feet feet aloe. -- graffiti. that's when he cried to me like a little boy and told me everything. it's a good deal. >> [speaker not understood]. >> he was cocaine, bad cocaine, he said. we have a lot of meth down there in arizona.

so, the next guy that we got, after we did jugs, i'm like, man, this is cool, let's get some more. so, you know, it's addicting to me now. [laughter] >> so, that's right, it's a good addiction, though, right? you know, we got jugs and everything was good, and you know, [speaker not understood] the guy that you saw in the press conference, i don't do press conferences. i stay out of them. i don't like being in front of cameras. he was all hank paulson. then guess what? he got booted out of office and they brought in another guy. so, i'm like man, this is going to work with this guy, too. every new attorney that come n you have to sit down with them and meet them and tell them what this means to you and what you can do and what you can't do, see if they'll go with it. and, so, the new guy came in and i was like, i don't know if he's going to go with this, but

let's try it anyway. so, this is where we met william brahas. i'll tell you a little about him, too, and his story. i'll wait for the advertisement. [video presentation] >> money for your gold. [video presentation continued]

[speaker not understood].

>> all right. william brahas, 20 years old, how we caught him, too, he used a lot of the internet. he was all over youtube, facebook. his girlfriend was big in

helping us locate him. she put it on her facebook. you know, i don't know if you guys know this, too, when you take a picture and you post it on your facebook, it gives a little longitude-latitude. that's how we got up to glendale. we're in phoenix, arizona. let's see. here's a little bit about jugs again real quick. he got 4-1/2 years prison time, over $10,000 in damage to the city for clean up. got 6-1/2 years in prison. he did over $15,000 in damageses to the city. how we caught mod the first time, which kind of upset me, is he spray painted a fire station. and i don't know about you guys have good firemen like us, but our firemen like to kick the crap out of people that do things like that. they've helped me a lot. they actually chased this kid down, got him arrested for the criminal damage on the

firehouse, but for some unknown reason we didn't get a call out on it. when i get something like that, i know who he is. i put a file stop on him. for some reason they didn't call me so i didn't get to interview him that day. i had to find them again. once he was released from jail he he was back out tagging again. his tags started moving north and west of our valley. where is he going? so, then, using facebook i found out where his girlfriend was and she lives in glendale. so, they take pictures and it goes on facebook and you do the longitude-latitude and you can get kind of close to where it was. well, just so happened that he tagged at 27th avenue in glendale, right on the glendale and phoenix border, we start today set up on him and found out where his girlfriend lived. we sat on the house and caught him, okay. after we arrested mod, broad him in, same thing. sat down and interviewed him for hours.

and, man, they cry. you see that? once you start getting into their -- thing that helped me with mine and like i said, i'm not an expert, but if i can use -- if you can use something for me to help make your investigation successful, i don't start off with why did you do this, what did you do -- i start off nice and slow. tell me a little bit about yourself. it's like an interview, okay. and they tell you. you find something like jugs didn't have a dad. he said, i didn't have a dad to kick my ass to keep me right. it's okay, man. you try to hit those things and work them that way. mod, same thing. he was addict today it. could not stop. did not want to stop. just kept going. told me that if we didn't stop him, he'd still be writing. but here, 6-1/2 years in prison. so, we sat on that house. we arrested him that day. it was a great day, it was a great time.

got him put behind bars. did his fingerprints. guess what? fingerprints came back. i got hits all over phoenix. what the hell is going on? guy is just a tagger, right? no, he did six burglaries in phoenix and five burglaries in glendale by his girlfriend's house. 35 guns stolen. went back and interviewed him. where did those guns go? he sold them. to who? bunch of tagger buddies. so, it go and goes and goes. and now he's got 6-1/2 years for the graffiti. he's facing up to 8 years right now for the burglary charges. so, it's not just graffiti. b feet i'm telling you, please don't believe that. * what else did i want to tell you guys? there's something. just be careful with some of these guys, especially when you deal with them out on the street. there's a couple incidences where we caught people in the

act, arrest them, get their hands behind them, sure as crap they have a gun right there. so, either they have guns or they have pellet guns that look like guns. same thing as i'm going home to the family. they pull that on you. you know what you need to do. it's a getting worse. and we're doing a study -- you might be interested in talking to you about it. they're doing all the crimes that are linked to these guys that are taggers to the crimes that they're doing beside. i'm sure you're doing a lot with us. i love the stuff you're doing. i applaud you for that. just remember that it's not just graffiti. anybody have any questions? this is one of my favorites. i saw a female doing graffiti in phoenix on the street and she was helping the painter, she was doing it. she kind of looks a little bit funny. any questions?

again -- go ahead, wait, wait, where's the microphone? thank you. >> [speaker not understood]. everything i've heard today, i'm probably the only person in the world [speaker not understood]. everybody is paranoid, number one. [speaker not understood]. i couldn't believe it.

anyway, thank you. >> thank you. >> [speaker not understood]. [laughter] >> yeah. >> [speaker not understood]. >> any other questions? again, my card is over there. the graffiti tracker card is over there. if you want to contact them, that's on you. if you want to just talk to me about them, you can do that as well. but anything i can do to help you combat graffiti, by all means, let's do it. if you guys find something that's more successful than what i've shown you or you have something you want to share with me, i love it. knowledge is power, man, anything to take them down. well, i need the microphone. i feel like oprah. now you don't have to use it any more.

>> i was just wondering if you had done your own [speaker not understood] the commission. but then you've been [speaker not understood]. >> no, i can't even do half the stuff they do. i actually tried in my backyard. i was doing some christmas project and i'm like, i'm going to try this. i'm like, i can't do it. it's all the pressure nozzle and all that stuff. no, i haven't done it on my own. and i wouldn't post anybody else's either. >> but that's why i wondered if you even got someone you knew, an artist. [speaker not understood]. >> we do have a guy. his name is ted walker. he is a published artist and he actually does that for us. so, we use that because then we can legally say we used our own person. >> do you have more than one person who will friend a person, like someone you're looking into so they don't get suspicion us? >> oh, yeah. >> [speaker not understood] was saying, don't [speaker not understood]. >> you're exactly right. once you start friending about

10 people -- because, again, don't do more than like 10 a day. try to get friends. let their friends request you and you say, accept, accept, accept. accept everybody on there. because that's how it shows you have credibility. and then the other thing is you do have to put some pictures up. so, you know, some thing can be a little more abstract with it, but, again, don't use your own city. don't use a city because they're going to want to meet you, stuff like that. like i said, i use something up in wisconsin. i have a nice pretty little girl on my thing, other pretty girl pictures on there. that's what they like so that's how they get on there. and you just keep adding friends. let them do t. once you get 10 or so, and then 10 of their friends, 50 of their friends, a hundred of their friends, now you'll look like you're a tagger yourself. you're good to go. you get all that intel right there. you try to stay -- phoenix graffiti.

* it's not broken. >> do you write any flickr warrants? >> i don't use flickr. instagram is huge right now. >> they went away from flickr. >> they came and went pretty fast. i'm sure there's some still out there, but our kids in phoenix don't really use it. >> it was good because you can put in multiple tags. if you put in the right key words and put a space in between them you can figure out all kinds of crews, monikers, and where they're tagging to, what cities. >> yeah, i've never had to do flickr yet, but insta gram, facebook, youtube, those i have. any other questions? i hope something you got from me you can learn. if you didn't hear everything

you wanted to hear, call me. like i said, i don't care what time it is. if it's about graffiti, like i said, i'm passionate about it. i'll help you out with anything. if you need to write a search warrant i'll help you write the damn search warrant as long as you take someone off the street. good luck and be safe. (applause) >> i introduce jennifer nelson, we introduced her before. (applause) >> a lot of you have talked to her already. she will be working with the speakers on stage. and i'd like to introduce jim merkasio with the san francisco graffiti advisory board. he will be the phil donahue.

i hand you the microphone. >> i'll hold onto it. i believe the way we're planning to do this, we have some written questions that we will be reading off and the panel will be answering them. i'll also be taking questions from the audience. so, if anybody has a question, feel free to raise your hand. allow me to have time to get over there to get to you. should we start off with a red question or a question from the audience? >> i can read one. >> okay. >> okay. and some of these questions on the list -- is the mic on? okay. some of the questions are directed toward a specific speaker, others aren't. so, if it's directed toward a specific speaker, i'll ask you. if not, just whoever can answer it, start answering it. this is a general question. so, it's not geared toward any particular speaker. so if anyone feels like chiming in, that would be great. how do you go about securing funding for the various graffiti programs? do you use grants, tax

assessments, et cetera? anybody? >> i think i can take that. >> okay, ready. >> for anyone who didn't attend my session, i do a juvenile program where i take kids who have been convicted of graffiti crimes to do community service on saturdays. the way i do this is get a public grant from department of public works where we take kids out to graffiti hot spots, we paint over graffiti and they get a reduced fine and credit for probation officers. this is done through a public grant. it's a very effective program. we have been able to turn a lot of kids around, restore justice. we get a lot of positive feedback from the community, a lot of other officers are happy to get the overtime. and as an officer, you're really able to facilitate the program well because you are able to put on a lot of different hats, communicate with probation, you communicate

with traffic court judges, with community referral center, and with station personnel. so, you really act as a good communicator and facilitator in the program from a law enforcement background. and the grant we get through public works really allows us to run effectively. >> great, thank you. >> [speaker not understood]. let me come on over here. what's your question? >> okay. [speaker not understood]. i've gotten three years of knowledge [speaker not understood]. my question is this. how am i going to get the police department, how am i going to get city council -- they're partially on board, but some of our people in public works are here today. how can i convey to them that

i'm not a nut -- everybody here thinks i'm a nut because [speaker not understood]. how did they really take this seriously and realize that graffiti is a crime and it requires money and it requires attention from the officials, not just from covering graffiti? is there an answer? can you give me some sort of -- what's a good direction? >> [speaker not understood]. >> [speaker not understood]. basically the task force, they'll put together and try to convince the citizens something is happening, then it will go away. it's no longer a political issue. what turned the corner for us, we had a mayor go out during

one of our zero tolerance on blight mayor. she went out on a clean up day. the people from the better business bureau went with they are and started dragging her through the streets and started showing her the [speaker not understood], showing her the graffiti all over and what an impact it's having on them. yeah, one person goes up, couple people go up, even the police go up and they believe it. you don't get a lot of interest from city hall on that. you get the business community and convince them the importance of dealing with graffiti and make that important to city hall, you'll be amazed. that was one of my most successful times, when the business community was appreciate you you aring city hall. that's our tax base. at a time when tax bases are diminishing income to citizens is diminishing, when you can show them how different it can be, that suddenly makes good business sense to them and they'll dedicate the resources to you. so, that's what's worked for me. (applause)

>> anybody else up there? everybody okay with that answer? i think we're pretty grateful here in san francisco that we have a mayor that was actually the director of the department of public works. so, we know he's totally on top of it and involved. do you have another question? >> this isn't geared towards any particular speaker, but it is geared towards abatement. we have an annual volunteer event where graffiti is removed city-wide. in an effort to encourage youth to participate we are considering a flash mob where all volunteers will abate graffiti at the same time on the same day along major thoroughfares. is this a good idea or does it detract from the issue? thoughts? okay, yes. >> that's a great question. >> thank you. my experience is it's really hard to paint while you're dancing. [laughter] >> but on top of that, my

experience with volunteerism and with large groups of painting comes from working with -- actually supervising small groups of offenders and volunteers doing the work hands on, but also working from the city side where we bring the paint and supplies to groups that might be from a business community or faith group and helping them to get set up, making sure they're going to get consent and setting them free in their community. there is a real cost factor associated with having 50 or 100 or 150 rollers, brushes, paint kits, trays, rags, running around your community. whether it's a flash mob or whether it's just a large event. so, i wouldn't recommend it. what i would recommend is maybe using a flash mob to get the word out, taking registrations, having a facebook page, that kind of thing, and then organizing those groups so that you've got some adult volunteers for every group of youth and you have a nice very well organized structured event. the other thing is there can be

a lot of waste and a lot of environmental damage if somebody isn't working very carefully with people that don't have a lot of experience with those kinds of materials. you want to make sure the paint doesn't go down the wrong place, that those rags can be reused, you can rinse things, stack them, collect them, and use them again. so, sustainability and environmental responsibility i would say is really good. but that would be pretty cool dancing and painting. (applause) >> anybody else? all right. do we have questions here in the audience? i see somebody, okay, coming over here. not only are we here to tackle graffiti, but we're going to tackle mic issues, too. they're setting up another mic. we might be able to use two mics again. you want to stand up? >> first, thanks for coming. this has been amazing. i'm with a group called big picture. we also work with kids, trying to deal with this problem of the source.

we teach the young offenders, especially on campus, prepare their own canvas and get to make art without victims. again, it comes back to funding. it's a general problem. a $9 billion company, that's how much they make every year and i don't see them contributing to the solution. if bp oil of the beach in the gulf, they're made to clean it up, i'm not sure why [speaker not understood] aren't endowed with the responsibility of helping with this problem. this is a legal problem. if they are encouraged to help, does that mean they're somewhat culpable? i'm not suggesting they start the war, but they've made the bullets. [speaker not understood]. >> do we have anybody up there? we have one pioneer over here that's willing to take on that one.

by the way, is that oakland, that accent? [laughter] >> i guess from my perspective, it never hurts to ask. we have a huge variety of sponsors. for example rona who is like a lowe's or home depot who is supplying or providing paint. they are a sponsor of my program. so, they provide me a 45% discount on paint as well as they give me a 25% discount coupon that we give to everybody. they supply the materials for my wipe outs, they supply the paint for my wipe out. cis -- not cis, seco paint has been providing paint the last number of years for wipe out. i know it's discouraging, but i think what i've found in terms of getting corporate sponsorship is starting at your local store and working it that way, trying to get them on board. and once you get them on board on small little events, then piece them off to get the bigger ones. so, for example, glad bag

sponsors our 15 to clean program. they provide all the bags and all the gloves for our whole spring campaign. and it's possible. so does safeway. safeway sponsors one of our litter programs where they -- we pay nonprofit groups to go in the community, pick garbage for 16 weeks during the summer, and they pay those. safeway as well as many other groups pay those volunteers. so, i mean crylon, like you said, it's a huge company going to head off. you're probably not going to have the same success as somehow working with local businesses. that would be the only thing i could suggest. but it's worth a try because i think the more persistent you are -- i think a couple of them finally gave us money because rona in particular because they just didn't want to hear from me any more. [laughter] >> all right, thank you. (applause) >> i don't know why the product is still on the shelf. persal