Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Busted APD issues arrest warrants for graffiti artists, including Vomet, Enzo, Perve
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 11:18 AM
- CL File
- Atlanta Police say seven individuals, including 'Vomet,' are responsible for more than 800 acts of graffiti vandalism in Atlanta
Police spokesman Carlos Campos said officers have already seized evidence discovered during the execution of three search warrants, including spray cans and "photos and property bearing the vandals' 'tag.'" Officer Ari Bleifeld, the department's so-called "graffiti officer," conducted the investigation over several months and was assisted by the city's graffiti task force and community members.
“These arrest warrants show the APD’s commitment to enforcement of quality of life issues, such as
graffiti vandalism,” Police Chief George Turner said in a statement. “Left unchecked, graffiti can bring down a community and give people the impression that its residents simply don’t care. Our pursuit of these lawbreakers is proof that the city of Atlanta does care.”
In total, Campos said, police issued 29 arrest warrants for seven people who are responsible for "more than 800 acts of graffiti vandalism throughout the city." Three of the individuals are already in custody.
Joshua Graham Feigert, 27, is wanted for three counts of violating the city ordinance on graffiti abatement and one felony count of criminal damage to property in the second degree. Police say he's responsible for “Feed" and “Russia” tags.
Christian Peter Rancourt, 29, who police say uses the tag “Perve,” is wanted for two counts of violating the city ordinance on graffiti abatement.
Marcos Velez-Acevedo, 23, who police say tags as “Shine,” is wanted for four counts of violating the city ordinance on graffiti abatement and destruction of property.
Christopher Erik Smith, 29, is wanted for four counts of violating the city ordinance on graffiti abatement. Police claim he's also known as “Vomet." "Vomet" was accused of tagging a Living Walls mural in 2010.
Douglas Grantham Jones, 19, who police say tags as “Beav,” was taken into custody and transported to downtown's Atlanta City Detention Center. He faces four counts of violating the city ordinance on graffiti abatement and destruction of property.
Michael Norman Goodman, who police say is “Enzo,” was taken into custody and transported to the Fulton County Jail. The 20-year-old faces six counts of violating the city ordinance on graffiti abatement and destruction of property and one felony count of criminal damage to property in the second degree.
Daniel William Rohrabaugh, 25, who police say is behind the tag “Steal,” is wanted for four counts of violating the city ordinance on graffiti abatement and destruction of property. Police say he's currently being held in the Clayton County jail on unrelated charges.
CL's currently trying to contact the men named above. If you're one of them — or their lawyer — and want to comment, send me a line or give me a call at (404) 614-1224.
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Comments (88)
Showing 1-50 of 88
Not the first time Smith (a/k/a "Vomet") has been busted for this:
http://articles.dailypress.com/2003-05-31/news/0305310202_1_graffiti-charges-misdemeanor-counts-spray-painted
Looks like he did four months up in Virginia eight years ago.
like
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I was hoping to see Juse in this list, but it's some nice progress anyway. I hope the taggers are getting the message that attitudes have shifted.
The hard part is that SOME graffiti works are great. Those rats on the Beltline (which were not part of the art project but appeared at roughly the same time) were fantastic. Legally, they were indistinguishable from the crap that Vomet and Juse and their ilk do -- but aesthetically, they were a fine addition to the city.
Then the taggers came and painted their bullshit over the rats. There were a dozen blank concrete walls nearby that they ignored -- because writing a name wasn't enough for them; they actually had to destroy something while leaving their marks.
It's similar with Vomet's defacing of a Living Walls project.
Truthfully, I don't really mind graffiti when the tags are isolated to themselves. I can overlook them in the urban environment, and I would hope that they could create an inviting atmosphere for the truly artistic street artists. I know others may disagree, but I don't view real art, regardless of property ownership, as vandalism.
Creative Loafing laid out the rules pretty well in a recent article: http://clatl.com/atlanta/know-your-graffit…
Unfortunately, the rules have broken down. So when they crossed the line by painting over the rats, that's when I crossed over from a supporter to a detractor.
This cases will be interesting from a 5th amendment aspect. I suspect they will rely on the suspects to confess, which they likely will without counsel - because they think they can admit using the tag without admitting to the actual specific crime alleged - that's a mistake.
@Real World - so you're comparing local taggers to international terrorist suspects? i can see how spraying paint on a wall and taking a bomb on a plane are equivalent.
The difference between quality street art and the ridiculous kindergarten level street "tagging" is huge. These vandals hiding under the false claim of being "artists" basically act out their personality disorders by painting the most asinine tags on property that really hurts the average Atlanta citizen. It is a lot of work to clean this junk up and it really is that, junk. I have respect for the large pieces that are done but this random spraypainting one's name on street signs and such is ridiculous. We had one sign defaced so badly, a truck ran into an electric pole because the sign was meant to warn of an upcoming curve. This is on a street with kids in more than half the homes! These graffiti artists are cowards. Yellowbellied, spineless cowards.
HAHA at all you faceless tools calling others cowards on the internet. get real. like to see one of y'all hang upside down from a 50 ft overpass or attempt to get even close to what these guys do. coming on a message board to call someone else a coward is ridiculous.
Perve and Russia for Living Walls 2011.
please check out their walls they are awesome!
http://livingwallsconference.com/index.php?/artists1/atlanta-murals-2011/
@Real World . So you do realize that the artists that created these Rats that you seemed to love so much have stemmed from people who were just like and created the same "crap", as you so eloquently put it, as Vomet and Juse. And also that these same people were pretty much the only people who were venutring to the beltline and painting waaay before the city decided to revamp it. The artist that make the graffiti that you consider "GOOD" started off doing the same street stuff as these guys and they no longer paint in cities that take such hard stances on graffiti like Atlanta has recently done. Why risk creating anything worth while, when you can just throw up a shitty tag and keep it moving. The cops bearing down is going to ruin the art and bring out the goons. I do'nt disagree that it is vandalism and illegal, but it doesnt need to be treated as though these guys were selling drugs or doing something that wasn't completely reversible. Sending a graffiti artist to prison is the most absurd thing I've ever heard. Graffiti will continue no matter what, but as a city look at SF. They've embraced it and their city has florished from its art.
My post has nothing to do with graffiti! PAINT the whole town; I Really could care less about this "city" I mean suburb! I am just posting stories that never see daylight here!
all you guys have turned away from the real issues in atl and are proving that you dont care about everyone in the city. what they do is artwork and yes i agree that graffiti shouldnt be put over a previous mural. but at the same time people like the guy at the top are segregating people into classes. its ok if its an "urban" area is tagged but not any other? this is why so many young people choose to use drugs and commit crimes because you take away everything they love to do. how about concentrating on the meth project or the people trafficing drugs. after all, lawrenceville,ga is known as the meth capital of the country. its a shame that you look at graffiti like "it must be stopped" but the drug and crime problems are just everyday life. stop giving grief to the local artists! if anything, give them a place to graffiti at! i think they are unseen artists trying to make a positive impact on their neighborhoods.
Yes, attitudes *are* shifting -- as exurban middle-class white people get out from under crippling mortgages and buy up some great in-town property. Really, keep your SUV-driving, homeowner association-having BS OTP, please.
I'd love to know who gets to be in charge of deciding what's "art" and what's "graffiti" and what qualifies them for the job...
"I'd love to know who gets to be in charge of deciding what's "art" and what's "graffiti" and what qualifies them for the job.."
EXACTLY!
Also, the rest of you- are you serious in okaying this waste of money on petty crimes? Have you driven around this city? As a resident- I can think of much better ways to spend this money and time? Potholes, Transit system, THE SCHOOLS.... If you are okay with this then you only prove how much you don't care about the residents of our community. We have real problems- real crime and a crumbling infrastructure. GROW UP.
JoeInAtlanta the rats under freedom where illegally painted by graffiti artist... but done in a way to make it look like it was a commissioned painting so it would last longer under there...
Those little guys look like they'll really enjoy getting to know Big Jerome down at the jail. I hope they've been doing their stretching exercises like mama always told them to.
These guys weren't just out defacing a bunch of abandoned warehouses and industrial property. They've tagged public property and people's homes and cost both the public and private citizens. How can you defend their actions in any way? Destruction of property is a crime.
not a whole lot of graffiti fans in here i see.. none of these guys are gang members and none of them are going to carjack you or break into your house - its just art - you live in a big city people - its all part of the fun. get over yourselves
that being said, they took the risk when they painted and got busted - thats just how it goes.. but this is a waste of our taxpayer money
Zeke- one, that's not the argument. The argument is it better to bust petty crimes. Do you know how much public money has went into ridding the streets of these terrible criminals? MILLIONS. That is not to mention the amount of police time. We have muggings, car theft, home invasions, streets in disrepair, a terrible school system, transit problems, etc. Are these kids that important to you, really?
I want to see the city tackle problems that bring real discomfort to the community. That is all.
Also, I live in east atlanta and I have never seen any of these names on the sides of houses that weren't falling apart and vacant. As far as public walls- I thought those were everyone's walls?
I'm not talking right and wrong- those are subjective, in my opinion. I'm just asking what are your priorities?
@joeinatlanta ---- Please save your ignorance for yourself. You are so desperate to catch Juse, yet admit that some graffiti works are great. I will let Juse's work do the rest of the talking and shut my mouth, as you should yours.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xshantihx/2556233551/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/christiangates/2620038512/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47719572@N02/4375242291/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/56896909@N00/4448447934/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39572674@N07/4041671836/
For anyone considering it art and fun, I'd like to share an my experience of summer heat, chemical removers, hard bristle brushes, bloody knuckles, out-of-pocket expense for said product, and final bill for a professional service to successfully clean our historic property's wall (a share community). I'd bet that if you were disrespected and shat on in this manner, many of you wouldn't feel quite the same way.
Strange that all of them are 18-29 and male. Where are the 55 year old ladytaggers?
You still won't stop the biggest art movement in history. Sorry but its bigger than you or your "property" that you care so much about. Take L.A. for example, you don't think they have an A.G.T.F. ?? That place is fucking covered. Graffiti is about fame. This is free promotion. The AJC publishes these things and the police set up raids but all it does is waste money and educate people about graffiti and make some of them want to start doing it. If you are going to arrest these people (some of whom i still consider kids and im not even 25) you must also give them a positive alternative. every other major city in the world has a place where the kids can go and paint and learn the correct way to do things within the graffiti community. This is also why the graffiti in other cities in significantly better than it is here in Atlanta. They have teachers and leaders and a self contained government. And i'm sorry if it gets in the way of your projected earnings or the re-sale value of your property but its just not going anywhere. Most artists (not just graff) are poor, so why should they care about property values? If anything they want them to go down or stay where they are. If you don't want graffiti on your building put up a sign that says "dont paint here i will paint over it before any of your friends can see it" I promise you will never have any more issues. And if you want to actually change things i mean there are people being shot everyday here and the crack and meth problem is out of control or maybe how the new wal-mart in atlanta is about to completely demolish our economy. you know the real problems that actually have an impact on people's well being. who cares about that stuff right?
instead of arresting these kids, i also support a place/outlet for them to actually do their thing in peace.
in santa monica, for example, there are legal walls, for artists with permits to put their temporary works on display while preserving a sense of community and a subset of arts/culture that is obviously more mainstream and not going away.
i'd rather accept the form as an art, no matter how ugly one considers it, and provide a place where it can be practiced, and maybe even perfected.
http://veniceartwalls.com/
i've been there and have seen art go up in a day, only to be covered the next day. not only does it draw artist, but tourists as well, ie=cultural attraction=money for the city.
here is another list: http://matadornetwork.com/trips/10-places-…
i also lived in cabbagetown for almost 10 years, and the krog street tunnel was the icon of that neighborhood. now it seems like every time i drive through it, there are photographers, movie people and tourist/curious people snapping pics.
it would be great to have something like that downtown, or near cnn.
Don't make this some sort of "haves and have nots" issue. These are simply a bunch of punk a** bored white kids that have no respect for anyone or anything else but themselves. Do I care about my home? Yes, but it's b/c I've worked hard and scraped by like so many others to provide a place for my wife and kid. I'm not some snotty yuppie that just landed from the suburbs. Are there larger issues out there? Of course, but the police action is a result of public outcry to do something about the actions of a bunch of selfish individuals. They should learn from the lesson being provided here... there are consequences to certain actions in society. Like it or not, we all live in one.
I agree that ATL and society in general should have resources for people to show off their artistic skills and ideas. (That's assuming they actually artistic skill or legitimate ideas) But spraying the sides of businesses, street signs, my sidewalk, and trees in my neighborhood with illegible tags? It's ridiculous. Stop claiming this is a way to improve the neighborhood. That's ludicrous. I feel sorry for these guys in that their lives are so pathetic this is the only thing they can think to do with their time and energy. They must think people are impressed by their balloon letters but in reality we really just think it's pathetic crap.
glad these losers and their shiite graffiti are facing the consequences for their cimes against art.
now go ahead and add juse and his shitty tags to the list.
What did the city think was gonna happen when they took away the civic yard, 40 yard, and all the bridge spots with the beltline?
Not to say there wouldn't be illegal graffiti being done, but a great deal of it would have been curbed had the city let the legal and "out of the public's eye" spots, ride. This is a complete waste of public resources, as someone else said, you live in a big city, people, get over yourselves. Graffiti should be the least of your concerns.
Let's be clear: that piece of shit known as "Vomet" does not belong in the same category as anyone else mentioned here or featured on the Living Walls site. "Vomet" is a true vandal with no purpose other than destroying existing talented work. I hope the hammer comes down HARD on his ass.
"Those little guys look like they'll really enjoy getting to know Big Jerome down at the jail. I hope they've been doing their stretching exercises like mama always told them to."
Oh yes, "Loose," kids totally deserve to be RAPED for spray painting abandoned buildings.
I know this is illegal but why is this getting so much attention? These kids are not doing anything violent and there is and will always be graffiti everywhere, this is an urban area. I for one am glad that these kids are just painting on walls rather than committing violent offenses or robbing or doing thing that actually affects others in a big way. Also, very rarely have I EVER seen graffiti on a house that is actually being lived in, or even a house not in a state of disrepair. APD, please focus on protecting us from REAL CRIMINALS, not kids with spray paint.
Vomet IS talented at what he does, art is subjective and what is ugly to one person can be beautiful to another, "Bloodgimp" (sounds like a real renaissance man).
Subjectivity plays no part in Vomet's talentless garbage - even by graffiti standards. AGAIN, he goes out of his way to destroy decent creative work that looks like it actually took time. So on the contrary, for people who actually appreciate art, "Vomet" should be considered the enemy. I can only guess that you're his mother, Ice, cause no one else will defend him.
Regardless of your view on graffiti as art or not, it doesn't change the fact that it Will continue. Anyone ever heard of the war on drugs? Prohibition? When people want to do things, they do it. I promise you that witch hunting a bunch of half-decent artists will only result in shittier, more-hastily done tags thrown up by new people.
But honestly, whether graffiti be defined as art or not is not my real concern. I'm not trying to defend their actions. Perhaps artists should be arrested. But Atlanta is the number one hub of of human trafficking and child sex exploitation in the US. The biggest seizure of crystal meth in the Eastern US was in Atlanta. I'm not telling you that you shouldn't be whining on message boards about how graffiti sucks. I just think I could sleep better knowing a 6 year old wasn't being raped in my city. My apologies to you if Your private property was vandalized by someone writing something that you didn't like. I understand your frustrations. I can understand (though not necessarily agree with) someone saying that seeing ugly stuff on public property is annoying. Not life threatening, but annoying. And your opinions should be heard and Maybe Atlanta should have a task force, but Not until real issues are fixed.
The commissioner of the graffiti task force, George Dusenbury, stated in another CL article that the task force hopes that "eradicating Atlanta's public walls of tags and graffiti could result in improved quality of life". Which would be awesome, except correlation does not imply causation. While the wise Mr.Dusenbury is spewing logical fallacies to justify this task force, the head goon he appointed, Officer Ari Bleifeld, states in the same CL article that ""Quite honestly, I like the cat-and-mouse game a little bit," he says. "A lot of the reason [the graffiti community] does it is they see it as a bit of a game. What fun is the game if the other side isn't playing?"" I'm not at all one to say "fuck the police" but I also don't relish the fact that this guy is patting himself on the back and rubbing one out to arresting a 19 year old on petty vandalism. Petty- as in of little importance.
So you can piss and moan as much as you want, but I'm sorry, the art or not art debate aside, I cannot in my mind justify all of this effort when there are much larger issues to deal with.
It's all art.
But when it's applied to another's property without permission, it becomes vandalism as well. If you get covered by another vandal or arrested, well...you should expect that. If you can't handle the consequences of your actions, you are a pussy...and a weak artist.
You gotta pay if you wanna spray. Stop whining pussies. Kudos to the cops...and I don't feel that way often.
I will never read Creative Loafing again. This is bull. These are wonderful artists with passions, you guys need to get a life.
Christ, graf artists act like such pussies. The threat of arrest is half the point. Where's the fun without it?
Vandalism is a crime for a reason: the public has decided they don't like it. You are imposing your values on the majority and ignoring the legal mechanisms for doing so. You expect them to thank you?
Tagging leads to less economic development leads to more poor people. Fighting that is worth the salary of one police officer.
then arrest the people who made the movie 'drive' and jill scott's new album, both of which have posters slapped up illegally all over town. we are force fed advertisement all day but when we chose to promote ourselves, its cause for jail? who do you really support atlanta, the residents or big money ??
Monica from living walls has a something big stuck WAY up her ass for Vomet. It's old and over. Street art gets covered sooner or later--period. So it happened very soon for that wall...that's the game. For someone who organized all that shit supporting street art, she sure as hell doesn't understand it. Rules were established and these things were going on far before you and your hipster friends thought it was cool. Graffiti can't and wont be stopped...now this drama has just made it even more thrilling. Good job apd how about u check out the crackheads and tranny prostitutes soliciting outside my building...I'd take a tag over being harassed by them any day.
It's one cop out of 1800 or so cops the APD has. I wouldn't get too carried away with the whole mis-allocation of resources or "where are their priorities?!?!?!" bit.
Actually, it is not one cop. It's a task force. It just happens that Dusenbury is the head guy and the one they predominately reference. According to an old CL article "Wanting to turn the mission into a citywide effort, the commissioner revived the task force, whose members include city departments, Atlanta Police brass, Atlanta Public Schools officials, Keep Atlanta Beautiful and CSX".
And in that same article "Dusenbury says that according to his office's estimates, the parks department has invested approximately $30,000 in the effort."
$30,000 may not save public education but it's not going to make any long-term difference in eliminating graffiti either and that's the point.
looks like that 30k got a couple of arrest warrants.....good investment if you ask me.
I support real street art, but most of these "taggers" are just dogs pissing on shit. No creativity, no originality, no respect, just big egos and bad taste. Good riddance.
i can't believe this stupid fucking article put their full names online. bullshit.
(@ weak move by CL) Are you fucking kidding me? They're not ninjas or CIA operatives. It's public knowledge who the fuck they are. APD sure as fuck knows. Your shit is week, dude.
Right. So If they are All caught and If they are found guilty and then, supposing, when they get out of jail they might not do it again and/or not change their name. The thing that they have been doing for years and willingly acknowledge they could go to jail for and still do it anyway. And continued to do after a task force was created almost a year ago. And this is 7 of the 50?100+? Who knows how many people that have participated in some form of graffiti in Atlanta for the past year. .......sounds like you need to thoroughly analyze your ideas of a sound investment to me
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