GPS Tracking

ESCONDIDO, CA – Police in a southern California city are becoming quite the experts at collecting artwork. But their intent is not to display it on a wall for all to admire. It’s to send the artists to jail.

Escondido, Calif., near San Diego and the Mexican border, has one of the highest rates of property crimes per capita in California. It has a population of about 130,000 residents and a real problem with graffiti, also known as tagging.

Last year the police department started a new GPS tracking program. A special camera, equipped with GPS tracking and location technology, was purchased and put to work catching graffiti artists. The digital camera documents the vandalism in an image, then records its time, date and exact location on a computer mapping system. All the GPS tracking data can be downloaded to computer.

Over time, hundreds of vandalism incidents are recorded into the common database and patterns begin to emerge. Art experts with street smarts identify artwork by the same artist. Police say graffiti artists usually strike near their own homes. When a young vandal is located, he is charged with a series of his graffiti crimes instead of just one.

One of the latest tagging arrests was 19-year-old Isaiah Gastumel, who is charged with six felony and 146 misdemeanor counts of vandalism.

A measure of the GPS tracking program success, one police Lieutenant Bob Benton said annual restitution paid to local businesses increased nearly 10 times this year over last. Before the GPS tracking system was instituted young taggers’ crimes amounted to about $20,000 in fines. This year the figure multiplied to almost $200,000.

Much of the money goes to the shop owners. Some business owners in downtown Escondido say they pay about $300 a week to crews to clean their walls of graffiti.

Within a few days, the scrawl returns.

-          Source: Channel 10 News, San Diego, Calif.

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