Portland certainly not
going away anytime soon.
Yesterday we told you about a prolific
tagger who was recently arrested
and how Portland police are shifting
the focus to arrest vandals who are
accused of quote high volume graffiti.
That suspect Emile Laurent is facing
25 counts of criminal mischief.
He's been indicted by a grand jury,
but he's not been convicted.
Yesterday many of you asked about
penalties for people convicted of
graffiti crimes which fall under
that criminal mischief category.
Well, here's what the state law says.
Criminal mischief.
In the first degree,
Laurent is facing 6 counts
of that is a Class C felony.
Each count comes with a maximum
of five years in prison and a
potential fine of 125,000 bucks.
Criminal mischief.
In the second degree, Lorenz,
facing 19 counts of that,
is a Class A misdemeanor.
Each count is punishable by up to 364
days in jail and a fine of just over $6000.
So if Laurent was convicted on all
25 counts and given the maximum
penalty for each and every.
Out he'd be facing nearly 50 years in
prison and a fine of more than $860,000.
Of course,
it's worth noting that there's no way
he's going to get that kind of a penalty.
It will depend on things like
plea deals and community service,
and the penalties are likely
to be much smaller,
but it is an interesting case,
and one that we're going
to continue to follow now.
Your response to our story yesterday.
Spoke volumes you wanna know you
wanna talk about what is being done
about graffiti and what is not?
It was overwhelming and I think a lot of
people like me are just simply fed up.
So let's check in on some of
your comments and voicemails.
Number one, I think all citizens
should be encouraged to call the police
whenever they see somebody vandalizing,
whether it's graffiti, etcetera.
Two, I think businesses should who have
graffiti on their buildings should have
a limited amount of time to clean it up,
maybe a week or so.
Three, I think they should raise the
penalties for those people caught causing
graffiti on building signs, etcetera.
Something pretty major like maybe $10,000.
For instance, or something like that.
Alright, thank you Kevin.
Interesting that Kevin brings up the
point of businesses having a limited
amount of time to clean up graffiti.
Because right now there is a
section of Portland city code
that requires such cleanup.
Businesses have 10 days to clean
it up and if they don't the city
can give what amounts to a warning.
And if another 10 days go
by and nothing happens,
the city can then clean it up
themselves and build the owner.
There's also a fine of 250
bucks for each instance.
If the graffiti is ignored it is a
complicated system though and it's clearly
not being enforced and not working.
Right now,
our next comment comes from
a viewer named Art,
who brings up an idea that many
of you echoed as well make the
Vandals clean up their own mess.
I would make a suggestion about the
people who are doing all the tagging,
what they should do is restore
the original building to their
original condition at their expense.
They can earn money by picking up trash.
They can earn money by cleaning up
homeless areas until they repay.
The individuals who have the building.
They had to clean up.
If it's $6000,
make him pay it by earning the money
to restore the original building.
And publish it every night
so everyone can see him.
So they have an idea of what the next
person that gets caught going to do,
and pretty soon we'll have a clean
city both in tagging and in trash.
Thank you, art.
That idea takes community service
to the next level for sure,
but it will take. What will it take,
I guess is the question that we need to ask.
Is it going to have to be drastic
measures to fix things, or are we
going to keep doing things like before,
which clearly is not working?
Something to consider.
One viewer named Melissa, though,
feels a bit differently about all this.
She worries what people consider graffiti
and how it could affect what she says are
positives about the city's aesthetic.
She wrote in to say please,
please let graffiti art stay.
It's part of city.
Life and brings joy and wonder when
people are allowed to artfully
express themselves publicly,
even if it is controversial,
and she's not talking about
pornographic imagery there.
I guess I'm concerned she goes on about
the slippery slope that could happen if
all street art is considered graffiti.
This could lead to the
extinction of public murals so.
What do you think about all this?
We'd love to hear from you.
Do you want more enforcement?
Stiffer penalties?
Mayor Wheeler likes his executive orders.
Do you think he should issue
one of those with bad help?
Something sure needs to change
to help clean up the city.
And it starts, probably,
with an idea followed by action.
So let us know what your ideas are.
e-mail the story at kgw.com
or leave us a voicemail.
503-226-5090.