Tagging the Coach

I came back from the bathroom at City College, and saw a young man running away from the front of my bus. He still had an aerosol paint can in his hand as he ran. I knew I had less than 15 seconds to capture the image. I ran to the front door, pried it open and hit the drive cam button. The camera captures up to 15 seconds, with hopefully about 8 seconds prior to button push. I nailed him. On the front windscreen, this idiot tagged both windshields and covered then with paint. I would be unable to move the coach because my view was blocked by graffiti.

I found a soda can at the curb that still contained a swallow or two, and immediately held the open top to the paint on the windows. Like a deicing blade on a cold winter morning, I let the cola drip out of the pop top and used the lip of the can as a scraper. Because the paint had not dried, the carbonated water was great in cleaning off the mess. Score another victory for staying in service without a call to the car cleaners!

The next week, I pulled in to the Phelan Loop at City College and I saw a paddy wagon and several cops standing around with radio sets talking to a youth. I heard them say the fine was $10,000 dollars as they put handcuffs on him. The young man freaked out with a scream or a moan of “No!” as he dropped to his knees.

I didn’t feel victorious or elated. I felt sad. Could there be another way to instill in this young man the consequences of his thoughtless action? The thought of Ripley in Aliens came to mind when the alien egg opened in the nest one last time to find another victim to grab onto and incubate. 

That’s the last straw. You went over the line. It’s one thing to put some initials on the tail end of a bus as we pull away from 18th and Mission, but it’s a whole different ball game to completely block an operator’s view on the front window. 

My motive to capture his image on screen was consistent with the “broken window” theory used by the police in New York City. By clearing graffiti in its tracks by (fixing a broken window stat) and stopping the blight immediately as it occurs, the message, this situation is unacceptable, prevents future abuse.  

I do look at graffiti as an art form and admire the many alleyway walls that contain such aerosol art. Watching the creation process is interesting and informative.  California may hold the record in number of wall tags and wall art; but on the windscreen of a bus?  I don’t think so.

We have event marker buttons to record what happens on the side of the bus, where most tags occur. We now have 9 active cameras covering all interior and exterior sides of the bus. Usually, as I pull away from the zone, I see a tagger hurrying to scribble before the bus moves away. They wear a black hoodie pulled over their head to make facial features hard to detect. I never know if the image ever gets to an authority able to catch the tagger, unless I get a radio call to pull over and wait for a police car to identify the person in the back seat. I usually continue on my way without any confirmation that resources are to be used to catch the taggers. 

The passive approach seems to work best. By marking the time and place, resources can be ready the next week and see if the pattern repeats.  More often than not, it does. It is these patterns, these beats within the energy flow of the city that fascinate me and keep my mind active and interested in what is coming next. 

When taggers come to the front to talk to me after their buddies go to jail, I know justice has been served. Very few incidents occur once the word is out. Sometimes there is retaliation inside the bus before an exit. They come in huge packs so the police cannot discern who sprayed what as they all wear the same black uniform. When they are all waiting at one bus stop to board, I pass by. This means passing up a stop, and sometimes a passenger has to walk back a few blocks, but I try to explain why I didn’t stop. They understand. It’s fewer buses out of service.