Thread: Defaced Jewel: MS 13 gang insignia found

Defaced Jewel: MS 13 gang insignia found
spray-painted on 1788 Gemeinhaus church
in Bethabara
By John Hinton | Journal Reporter

Published: August 30, 2008

Officials at Historic Bethabara Park have started a painstaking process to remove graffiti from the 1788 Gemeinhaus church after someone spray painted a gang insignia on an outside wall earlier this month.

The church has a sand-based mix on its exterior that cannot be painted over.
"You can't put chemicals on it to take the graffiti off," said Ellen Kutcher, the park's director. "It is so fragile. It is the architectural jewel of Bethabara."

The exterior of the Gemeinhaus is composed of sand, animal hair, stones and clay applied over stone, Kutcher said in an e-mail. Removing the spray paint is problematic because the sand mixture must be removed.

The park brought in John Larsen, the vice president of historic restoration and facilities management at Old Salem Inc. and Harold Day, the owner of David Day Inc., to remove the graffiti. Day restored the surface of Gemeinhaus 35 years ago, Kutcher said.
Nearly half of the graffiti has been removed so far. Larsen and Day used a pocketknife and bristled wooden brushes to remove it.

The Gemeinhaus is the only German colonial church with attached minister's living quarters that remains in the United States.

Someone spray-painted "MS 13" on the building, Kutcher said. MS 13 refers to a gang that was started in Los Angeles in the 1980s and whose nearly 10,000 members are mostly from Latin America and Central America. The gang has spread throughout the United States.

Two cans of white spray paint were found beside the back steps of the church on Bethabara Road. Park officials reported the vandalism to the Winston-Salem police. It happened between Aug. 20 and Aug. 22, according to a police report.

Earlier this month, MS 13 was also spray-painted on educational signs and pavement along the greenway that runs through the park. Since the spring, vandals have also drawn pictures on natural-history signs at the wetlands and carved in a wooden sign at the pavilion, Kutcher said later in an e-mail.

Park officials say they believe that the graffiti on the church is "the same gang graffiti that spread throughout the city this spring and summer," Kutcher said.
"Our greatest fear has been that the historic buildings in the park would be defaced. This fear has now been realized," she said.

The vandalism has caused an undetermined amount of damage.
"The damage is not in monetary terms," Kutcher said. "We want to remove it."

â–* John Hinton can be reached at 727-7299 or at jhinton@wsjournal.com.
http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008 ... pray-pain/

And Obama want to give them amnesty.

And Obama want to give them amnesty.

Isn't that the kicker......not much of anything about weeding the really bad out from the supposid good ones.

The Gemeinhaus is the only German colonial church with attached minister's living quarters that remains in the United States.

Below is a tag in my town from this year. After this tag they went right down the fence by crossing it out, putting other gangs tag, etc... Wish I'd had my camera. They came and painted ugly white blotches. This MS-13 is across from a school.