Caught Taggers and Police never came!!! (San Antonio, Van: appointed, apartments, high crime) - Texas (TX) - City-Data Forum

CameraGirl · 06-11-2009, 03:50 PM

Last night around 9:30 pm my DH and I were driving down Vance Jackson less than a half a block from Wurzbach and say two kids tagging a bunch of businesses on that corner- they had done the brand new Walgreens, this long wall that is between the new Walgreens and an older business named Cowboy Cleaners. The taggers were young- 12 & 14, African American and wearing long black t-shirts and baggy jeans. We believe they are brothers- they looked very similar to each other. They saw us, see them and so we took it one step further by slowly following them in our car, while calling the police. We stayed with them for like 15 minutes. Some kind of city vehicle- came roaring down the street with a siren and we and the boys each thought it was the police finally coming but it just went flying by us (it wasn't a cop) but, created enough havoc that we lost the boys. We do feel like we know where they live as they seemed to be heading toward some apartments. We looked for them a bit and then went and sat at the building where the tagginig had been done.-waiting for the police. We waited at least a half hour and they never showed

!!!! We got really ticked off- because we had caught these guys red-handed and the police just needed to come & scoop them up

. It was disheartening. I have been inflamed with anger towards all these taggers- new "tags" are up, around here "every single day". This morning we went to all the businesses that got hit and told them our story- to help them possibly catch these little beasts. It was sad how all three businesses had people there scrubbing, painting and power-washing and having to take these efforts because of these two hoodlums. How will this ever end? It wasn't like it was dead on that corner either - it was only 9:30 and these boys felt invincible enough to do that much damage at that early of an hour

. Anyway, just had to vent! I have picked up on that many news stations and hopefully government agencies are on here reading what the people are saying & worried about. I am hoping someone from the Mayor's office reads this and any number of our other concerns and actually starts working for "the people". If this is allowed to continue- San Antonio home values will plummet, but the overall quality of life will suffer too

. If companies come here to see about bringing businesses and factories etc... to the San Antonio area they will get turned off by this graffitti and take their businesses elsewhere. This is a problem that can take down a city in a hurry. I am new here and have already seen massive changes and an increasing need to get this stopped NOW--in just the few months we have lived here. I want to see San Antonio thrive and not die.

wCat · 06-11-2009, 04:26 PM

Please don't wait for them to come to you. If you are angry enough about this, contact the news organizations personally with your information. Be sure to mention that you called the police and there was no response. The police were soliciting for paint donations just three weeks ago for the graf wipe outs. The community needs to know that they are not responding to catch these little creeps.

Here's a link...take you pick or write ALL of them. Then go to WOAI.com and write them too. Write our new Mayor, city council and all the radio stations. Call them too! If we sit back and wait for them to maybe read something here, we're wasting our time complaining. Be proactive!

About Us-EN-Contact the Newsroom (http://www.mysanantonio.com/about_us/express-news/contact_the_newsroom.html - broken link)

hadleyzoo · 06-11-2009, 05:01 PM

We had kids smoking dope at our pool house bathrooms a couple winters ago. My husband and I found their activities to be suspicious, so my husband walked around the building and could smell the dope coming out of the vents. My husband called the cops and the dispatcher said "why don't you just go in there and ask them to leave?". HUH? Because there's at least 4-5 of them and only ONE of me! Anyway, took the cops 2 hours to show up...fortunately the kids (5 of them) were still there. Parents were called to come pick them up. Two parents refused to take them so the kids were handcuffed and hauled away. (Kudos to those parents...maybe those kids got the wake-up call because of that.)

rd2007 · 06-11-2009, 05:08 PM

hopefully the OP will take this to the news because the police need to be called out on this.
I guess they are encouraging citizens to take their own bite out of crime and remember, most of us won't see a thing..

01Snake · 06-11-2009, 05:25 PM

Perhaps the police are too busy taking care of only those matters that add money to the city's coffers.

sapphire · 06-11-2009, 05:37 PM

And this is where the apathy starts. When the apathy starts, they win.

We need to relentlessly pursue, dog, and demand that this criminal behavior stops.

Tagging today, stealing your car tomorrow, robbing your home after that.

catriona · 06-11-2009, 09:03 PM

Call the TV stations' investigative reporters and see if you can get the businesses to do the same. The hoodlums get away with this kind of activity because they probably know the cops won't come out after them.

I noticed the SAPD website has a link about graffiti. Most of the ordinance referenced deals with penalties for property owners that have been tagged but haven't removed the graffiti within 10 days.

Graffiti Wipeout!

SAPD also gives you guidelines on filing reports...

Filing Police Reports (http://www.ci.sat.tx.us/sapd/FILING_REPORTS.ASP - broken link)

Evidently, you can report some crime online, like graffiti and theft. You fill out the info and then could wait up to 72 hours for someone to call you back.

These are the crimes you can report online:

http://www.ci.sat.tx.us/sapd/PDF/SELF_REPORT_GUIDE.PDF (broken link)

Another thread mentioned the speed trap off HWY 90 and that there were multiple cars with radar, etc waiting to catch drivers. Maybe that's where they were the night CameraGirl waited for someone to show up....

Dopo · 06-11-2009, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catriona

Another thread mentioned the speed trap off HWY 90 and that there were multiple cars with radar, etc waiting to catch drivers. Maybe that's where they were the night CameraGirl waited for someone to show up....

So far I'm veeery dissappointed with police/highway patrols in San Antonio.

I've seen about 100 next to the highway (speed traps)
but I've never seen 1 of those ............ actually driving on the highway and pulling somebody over that was driving in a way that they shouldn't.

Bad police = High crime, nothing left to say.

Buffyfan · 06-11-2009, 09:39 PM

I've noticed more tagging than the usual in very obvious parts of the city. Today I notice a HUGE tag on the Steinway piano gallery (orange building) on 410 and 281.

SA08 · 06-12-2009, 05:22 AM

I'm SO curious, Cameragirl - did you contact the media or anything due to the incident? I think the other posters are correct...the only way this will get attention is for us to make a HUGE stink out of the police refusing to respond.