In a city known for its vibrant street art scene, a pair of law enforcement officers is waging a battle against what they see as a blight on Portland’s landscape: graffiti.
Officers Nate Kirby-Glatkowski and Amelia Flohr of the Portland Police Bureau are on a mission to apprehend the individuals responsible for a majority of graffiti tags around the city.
According to Kirby-Glatkowski, who previously worked at a nonprofit advocating for nuclear disarmament, tackling graffiti seems like a manageable task compared to his previous endeavors. The strategy is to focus on prolific taggers who leave their mark across Portland.
“We go after the most impactful folks,” he told Willamette Week.
Their efforts recently received a boost when Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt secured a grand jury indictment against Jerry Mijangos, a notorious graffiti vandal whose large and amateurish tags have plagued buildings and freeways throughout the city.
Kirby-Glatkowski and Flohr have taken a meticulous approach to understanding the city’s graffiti landscape. One of the challenges in prosecuting graffiti vandalism is establishing the cost of property damage, which determines whether the crime is classified as a felony (more than $1,000 in damage) or a misdemeanor. The duo said they study the tags to discover patterns and nuances unique to each tagger, such as backward letters and unique flourishes. Those distinctive styles can help officers link multiple tags to a single perpetrator and determine the level of damage they have done.
“It’s puzzle-solving,” Kirby-Glatkowski said.
Despite the challenges, the pair remain undeterred in their pursuit of taggers.
“It’s a social ill,” Kirby-Glatkowski asserted. “It’s indicative of criminal permissiveness. It emboldens people who have criminal mindsets, and disheartens people who don’t have criminal mindsets.”
Kirby-Glatkowski was first prompted to take action in the case of Adam Tucker, known as the Bridge Monster due to his brazen acts of graffiti on Portland’s bridges in 2021. When police eventually tracked Tucker down and arrested him, the tagger told Kirby-Glatkowski his graffiti was a protest against police brutality.
After Flohr became Kirby-Glatkowski’s partner, she joined him in the fight against graffiti. “Once you start looking, it’s like the weirdest version of Where’s Waldo? you can imagine,” she said.
Their efforts have also led to the identification of several prominent taggers currently active in Portland. Cameron Johnson-Jung, notorious for tagging in broad daylight, has been arrested multiple times. Gabriel Rodriguez-Lee, known for his polished OMEGA tags, was apprehended with a loaded firearm. Another prolific tagger, Jacob Ramos, affiliated with the Kill Your Television (KYT) crew, was indicted on numerous charges, including manufacturing firearms and criminal mischief. Ramos’ arrest temporarily halted the proliferation of his tag, BIER, but the emergence of a new tag, JOINS, suggests the continuation of his crew’s activities.
Flohr and Kirby-Glatkowski also identified Jerry Mijangos, perhaps the most notorious of the taggers. Mijangos has been apprehended multiple times, facing numerous counts of criminal mischief for his extensive tagging spree across Portland.
Despite the successes of Kirby-Glatkowski and Flohr, challenges remain in combating graffiti vandalism. Local governments struggle to remove graffiti effectively, and staffing shortages led to the disbandment of the Portland Police Bureau’s dedicated graffiti squad in 2015.
Kirby-Glatkowski and Flohr, who spend approximately 10% of their time on graffiti enforcement, advocated for increased resources and support to address the issue comprehensively.
As they continue their mission to rid Portland of graffiti, the duo remain vigilant, knowing that each tag removed represents a step toward reclaiming the city’s streets from vandalism.
“The fight against graffiti is ongoing,” Kirby-Glatkowski concluded.
