The Crackdown On L.A.'s Graffiti Epidemic

The city is making efforts to prevent the men responsible for this quarter-mile-long masterpiece along the walls of the L.A. River from ever being able to pull off a tag like it again.  It's the most notorious piece by the Metro Transit Assassins (cute, right?), the crew being blamed for a city-wide epidemic of graffiti, 500 incidents of which have been attributed to them. But unlike the city's sloppy tags seen on alley walls and freeway signs, this was a well-thought out, calculated pièce de résistance for the MTA. They actually used a helicopter to scout its location so it could be seen from the freeway, as well as airport traffic overhead.

It cost almost $4 million to remove (L.A.'s yearly graffiti clean-up is an estimated $7 million), and now the city is seeking an unprecedented injunction against the crew, including a ban on associating with each other, possessing weapons and graffiti paraphernalia, and a curfew. But we suspect -- no, we know -- such efforts will be in vain. Hello, they took out a helicopter to plan a tag...

[Photo via]