Inmates help to remove gang writing on the walls

By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Rival South Side gangs used spray paint to leave messages for each other on a vacant building.
"It's ugly, it's obscene and it causes fear in the neighborhoods," Sheriff Randall A. Wellington said Tuesday as he watched the graffiti disappear behind a fresh coat of light-gray paint. "As it pops up, we eradicate it."
The sheriff used two inmates from the misdemeanant jail to paint over the gang graffiti on a vacant two-story brick building at the southwest corner of Glenwood and LaClede avenues. The men are both serving time for driving under suspension.
The inmates, Brian Boerio, 33, of Austintown, and Morris Booker, 48, of Louisville, Ky., volunteered for the work.
Booker said he doesn't like to see anyone "claim territory." Boerio said with a grin that he just wanted to get outside and would have volunteered even if it was raining.
Cpl. William Walker, pointing to the gang slogans as the inmates painted, said the Crips "rolled" into Bloods territory and left the messages scrawled in gray spray paint. To be precise, the paint should have been blue, the Crips' color.
Members of the Bloods gang then used red spray paint -- their color -- to answer their rivals.
What was left
The hastily written words included "GET MONEY," "PIRU R.I.P.," "5 poppin, 6 droppin," "51/50," "Erie Ave. and F--- CRABZ." Piru is a nickname for Bloods; Crabz is derogatory slang for Crips.
Wellington, who drives home via Glenwood Avenue, said he spotted the graffiti and arranged to have it covered. He said deputies are constantly looking for graffiti and residents also let the sheriff's department know where new graffiti has appeared.
"Too many people [in the neighborhoods] accept this," Maj. Michael Budd said, gesturing at the defaced building and surrounding area. "They need to do something about it."
The sidewalk alongside the building being painted was strewn with trash and weeds that have grown through the cracks.
Farther west on LaClede, the landscape offers a view of older homes with well-maintained yards. The street also has its share of vacant run-down properties.
After Glenwood, Boerio and Booker moved on to two vacant stores on West Woodland Avenue where it intersects Hillman Street. The buildings had been defaced with graffiti phrases: "Crack Kills," "Da Game Wont Wait," "catch the cash" and "$ MOB."
In the neighborhood
Larry Reed watched from the porch of Larry Reed's Barbershop, 649 W. Woodland. He said he's had his corner business since 1970. The vacant defaced buildings, a dry cleaning shop and grocery store, were open back then.
"It's a mess over there," said Reed, 61. "It's good to have somebody clean it up."
Reed said there's no gang activity in the neighborhood near his barbershop, populated mostly by senior citizens. He speculated that gang members "passing through" stop and spray-paint their messages.
"It reflects bad on the neighborhood," Reed said as two boys showed up for a haircut and he left his porch. "They'll come at night and do it again."
meade@vindy.com