A North Vancouver teen police allege is the most prolific graffiti tagger on the North Shore is now facing charges for leaving his mark.
“Stock,” as he has allegedly spraypainted on commercial and government buildings more than 90 times since the start of the year, was first arrested earlier this spring. Crown council has now approved five charges of mischief against the 16-year-old.
“We had done some surveillance on him. Our youth officers submitted inquiries. We keep intelligence and profiling,” said North Van RCMP spokesman Cpl. Richard De Jong. “Once you have 50, 60 or 70 tags, you obviously have someone who is a repeat offender. In this case, it was the diligence of our officers and the assistance of the community policing volunteers who helped document them all with pictures. … He was a person of interest and we just had to put him to the scene of the tags.”
While many taggers regard their work as art, the public commonly holds markings as an eyesore, De Jong said, and it is up to the buildings’ owners to pay to have them cleaned up.
The youth is due before a judge to answer for the tags in December.
