LA city attorney plans crackdown on taggers

The Associated Press
7:43 a.m. August 25, 2009

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles city attorney wants to apply a technique used against gangs to stop graffiti vandals – arresting them for simply hanging out together.

City Attorney Carmen Trutanich (troo-TAN'-ich) says he's looking into legal strategies that would permit the city to prevent suspected taggers from congregating.

Los Angeles already has 43 injunctions that bar members of 71 gangs from associating.

But civil libertarians say there's a big difference between writing on walls and gang violence such as drug-dealing and murder. They believe using such a tactic against taggers would be unconstitutional.

But Trutanich says the problem is so widespread that stronger measures are needed. The city received more than 600,000 reports of graffiti last year.

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