Signs of graffiti part of vicinity's scenery

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To the average jaded driver, graffiti may just fade into the woodwork, and passing through a given neighborhood on an errand may reveal little of the actual effect it has on disturbing an area's appearance.

Days before the announcement of a major clean-up effort in the Vegas Manor neighborhood, Clark County Commission community liaison Russell Davis offered a reporter a guided tour, beginning at a pavilion at Joe Shoong Park, at the corner of Wesley Street and Parkview Drive.

No great effort was required to find evidence of tagging.

Pointing to one garish squiggle of paint, Davis said, "DBK -- 'Doing Big Krimes' or 'Dropping Bombs Krew."

Inspecting another, he offered his opinion. "Twenty-eighth Street gangs. This is gang graffiti."

One post of the pavilion was tagged "Bio.nhc."

"He's tagged all around here," Davis said. "He's tagged all up in this neighborhood. If we get nhc, we can hit him with the cost estimate (for repair to the painted pole). He even tagged a tree."

Much graffiti has been painted over, but the covering paint rarely matches the original, so the appearance of a given wall may be less than a vast improvement.

"There's nothing sacred," Davis said as he swung his jeep around a corner near the park. "They hit everything."

"BOWD" on a small streetside pillar. "ECM.WDC."

"DOC" or "DOCTORS," always in black paint, is seen in several places. "It's one of the biggest tagging crews," Davis said.

"This is a tag name," said Davis, pointing to a painted "ROME."

There is a "MOD" -- Masters of Destruction -- and a "Can't stop us" declaration on one wall.

Davis noticed some tagging on the rear of a second-story facade above a store on Charleston Boulevard.

"That wasn't there this past weekend," he said.

A Neighborhood Watch sign is all but unreadable, it has been tagged so many times. On one of the Joe Shoong Park signs, letters spelling "junk" have been affixed, and a scrawled DBK added to the vandalism on the posting.

Nearby, a large poster promoting Chris Giunchigliani's campaign for county commission has been hit: the female candidate now sports a large black mustache and a cartoon balloon saying "DOCTORS."

On a stop sign, metallic lettering spelled "CWDK."

"They bought those letters at the store and stuck them on," Davis said. His comments waltzed back and forth between a recognition of the neighborhood's beauty and its fine homes, and his take on what has happened to it.

"These are really nice homes ... That wall is all tagged up ...You got some stuff on the walls, you got some stuff over there. You got some stuff on the curbing ... It could be cross-traffic, kids walking through here, or it could be kids living here ... See? 'Asoe.' He was arrested for tagging ... You don't put hanging baskets up and flowers out in the yard if you don't care about your neighborhood."

In many places, one tagging crew has sprayed paint over the work of another, expressing its dominance. Some tagging is spare, thinly sprayed letters; other letters are fat and balloon-like.

Davis notes one clever touch -- 73CK. On a telephone, he explains, the letter "R" is on the "7," and the "E" is on the "3." Thus, "RECK," another crew name, also seen often as REK.

"It's just upsetting to see all this," Davis said as the impromptu tour ended. "I believe it instills fear in the community."