Once the City logs a graffiti complaint and has determined whether the property involved is privately- or city-owned, officers explain to the complainant that, while what has happened is a crime, they, as the property owners, are responsible for dealing with it.
Depending on who’s in, who’s out, membership may vary day to day from 50 to 65 people, from whisker-less boys as young as 11 to at least one man as old as 39.
Many are the real thing, others hangers-on, wannabes.
Some live in Auburn, others are Seattle, Kent, Federal Way or Tacoma residents.
While most of what engages and enrages the public is graffiti and tagging, from time to time gangs make their presence known in bloodier ways — like the fatal shooting of Angel Mireles and his stepfather, 40-year-old Mark Rivera, on Oct. 20, 2015 at a bus stop at 17th Street Southeast and B Street Southeast.
“I wouldn’t say we are South Central Los Angeles or Chicago or New York, but we do have gangs, and they span many ethnicities,” Auburn Police Officer Jason Blake told the Auburn City Council on Monday at Auburn City Hall during a briefing on graffiti and tagging.
“… In the city we have documented at least five different gangs that call Auburn home, and in the schools we have representatives from all of those gangs,” Blake said.
In the last 18 months, Blake said, police have noted a sharp increase in the linear, monochrome, in-no-way-an-attempt-at-art style of gang graffiti.
That spike, he said, reflects recent gang efforts to fatten their membership rolls.
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