KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
A Canyon Country man linked to more than 1,900 graffiti tagging incidents within the Santa Clarita Valley was arrested Monday.
After a year-long investigation by the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station, the prolific tagger was apprehended by the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s COBRA detectives.
“The yearlong investigation included efforts from patrol deputies, COBRA detectives and members of the city’s graffiti removal program team,” said Sgt. Brian Shreves, who oversees the station’s COBRA team. “It was important for us to identify and apprehend the suspect.”
Christian Pacheco, 25, of Canyon Country was arrested on charges of felony vandalism for graffiti tagging that allegedly occurred between January 2018 through December 2018, according to officials.
“Pacheco’s criminal actions were both a financial burden, as well as an eyesore to the residents and business owners of Santa Clarita Valley,” said Shreves.
Pacheco was identified by detectives with the help of the City of Santa Clarita’s Graffiti Removal team, who uses a software program to document all graffiti incidents within city limits.
The tracker organizes the graffiti in a database, which then tracks the location of identical tags that can then be displayed on a map or a list, revealing patterns in place, time and frequency, according to Sheriff’s officials.
Sheriff’s station detectives can view a list of the top taggers in a certain area and look at the patterns of when and where the tagging occurred to identify the suspect.
The acts of vandalism reportedly associated to Pacheco were documented in public right-of-way areas that included sidewalks, walls, signs and buildings located off of major streets such as Sierra Highway, Via Princessa and Soledad Canyon Road, according to officials.
The majority of the graffiti was visible to the public in places of businesses, schools and parks.
Pacheco, who is on active probation for multiple crimes, was arrested and booked at the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station and is being held on no bail charges at the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic.
Pacheco is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 21.
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There is red paint tagging on the scott ave underpass in valencia in san francisquito river bed. FTP IS THE LARGEST SUGGEST. CAN FORWARD U A PHOTO OF TAGGING THE ENTIRE WALL IS TAGGED ABOUT 75 FEET.
Revealing the functionality of the software program to the public is certainly interesting but may very well render this investigatory tool less effective in the future. This is an ethical consideration every reporter and editor should keep in mind.
Taggers and others will now know more about how they got caught and provide insights on what they need to do to avoid capture in the future.
Since he is on probation for other crimes and decided to continue his criminal ways, he should be forced to serve all the time he was originally charged with and then serve his time for for all this felony vandalism. He should also be forced while incarcerated to serve on a work crew to clean graffiti in the Santa Clarita Valley. No more charge and release, it obviously doesn’t work.