Legal News

Taggers hanging out can be arrested under new "Nuch" proposal

By Richard Binder

Los Angeles City Attorney's Carmen Trutanich latest idea is raising some sticky constitutional issues.

In an interview, Trutanich said his staff has begun amassing street-level intelligence and reviewing legal strategies that would pave the way for a series of injunctions targeting graffiti and "tagging" crews. The measures would be lawsuits of sorts, brought on behalf of the public, treating much of the graffiti that mars buildings and overpasses as a criminal enterprise and arguing that it has become such a nuisance that it requires an extraordinary police response.  In this scenario, "taggers" wouldn't have to be caught in the act. Just hanging out together would be enough for the police to arrest them.

Peter Bibring, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, called the proposal "unquestionably unconstitutional," and some law enforcement officials said they were skeptical or ambivalent.

Los Angeles received more than 600,000 reports of graffiti last year. Many other incidents went unreported.

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Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on August 24, 2009 (boomark / email).