WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA Pittsburgh becomes haven for graffiti artists

Cutbacks in the police department don't help the problem.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- They've been called graffiti artists, bombers and vandals.
Regardless of their name, these taggers call Pittsburgh the nation's last blank canvass.
Cheap rents, a police force hindered by budget constraints and plenty of blank walls have made the city an attractive place for graffiti writers, who have moved to Pittsburgh from places like Philadelphia, St. Louis and Southern California.
"We heard through the grapevine that Pittsburgh was getting big, and it is," said a 22-year-old St. Louis native who goes by the name Du-Rag. "In the graffiti world, Pittsburgh is blowing up."
A group of taggers, predominantly young, white males from middle-class backgrounds, agreed to talk to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on the condition of anonymity.
Many taggers gain a reputation through graffiti Web sites. They do it for ego gratification, artistic expression, camaraderie and a disdain for authority, said one who moved to the city from California two years ago to attend art school.
About 100 people tag railroad cars, bridges, buildings and other targets in the Pittsburgh area, he said.
Pittsburgh is attractive because designs stay on buildings, billboards and other "canvasses" for longer periods of time, graffiti writers said. Also, the police department doesn't have a unit that exclusively focuses on graffiti abatement, they said.
Pittsburgh's budget cuts forced the city's Department of Public Works to disband its Graffiti Busters unit.
Zone stations
Pittsburgh police detectives in the department's five zone stations track graffiti and vandalism. It's hard to determine how many people have been arrested for graffiti writing because it falls under a criminal mischief law that includes other minor crimes.
But the police department's Special Investigations, Crime Analysis and Intelligence Unit is putting together a database that could help arrest taggers, said Detective Amy Mattia. The database will be running within six months, she said.
Police tried to make an example out of a tagger known as "Mook," who gained notoriety by spray-painting out-of-the-way places such as the tops of bridges. Michael Monack also was accused of etching the window of the city's Graffiti Busters cleanup truck while the crew stopped at a convenience store for lunch.
Monack, 21, served three months in jail and nine months under house arrest after pleading guilty to criminal mischief and other charges. He was also ordered to pay thousands of dollars in cleanup costs, he said.
The attention and the police pressure became too much, he said. Monack traded in his spray paint cans for tattoo guns as he embarks on a career as a tattoo artist.
As for the new generation of taggers, Monack said police are fighting a losing battle.
"It's like the terrorists," he said. "Graffiti is always going to be there."
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