Edmonds graffiti suspect’s hands were a giveaway

Published 11:13 pm Tuesday, July 29, 2008

EDMONDS — The man’s bitterness about the skimpy size of the coffee samples at an Edmonds Starbucks brought the cops.

The red paint on his hands and the pictures police say they found on a camera in his backpack sent him to jail.

Now, the Edmonds man is charged with a felony. The 21-year-old man is accused of spray-painting graffiti on vehicles and buildings around Edmonds and Lynnwood, including a Baptist church.

Police say they caught him red-handed. Not only was he spattered with paint, but he also allegedly snapped photos of the crimes.

Officers crossed paths with the tagging suspect in February. An employee at the Starbucks on Main Street summoned police just after 9 a.m. to deal with two men who were pestering customers and drinking booze outside the coffee shop.

The men had asked to sample some coffee but were rude to employees when they were handed a Dixie-cup-sized sample of joe. They wanted more, a bigger cup, a few more ounces of caffeine. An employee told them that a larger cup of coffee “was not a sample.”

The men turned to customers and asked for money. When that didn’t pan out they left the shop. They didn’t go far.

The duo were seen swigging from a large bottle outside the Starbucks.

A police officer found the men and asked them what happened. The Lynnwood man said he was asking for money but left after a barista refused him more free coffee. He agreed to let the officer look in his backpack.

Inside was a large bottle of a “homemade alcohol mixture,” along with a can of red spray paint and a digital camera.

The contents made the cop curious. So did the red paint on the guy’s hands.

The man denied tagging anything. He said he recently spray-painted his bicycle.

No, the officer couldn’t look at the pictures on his camera, the man said. The batteries were dead.

No, he didn’t want any new batteries from the officer.

Still curious, the officer offered the man a lift to pick up his bicycle at the library.

The man hopped inside the patrol car.

He apparently forgot that his bike didn’t have a fresh coat of red paint.

The officer had some more questions.

The man said he wanted to change his story, come clean. He said he had done some tagging. He spray-painted graffiti on a building and some trucks at a furniture store. He hit a church and a Honda dealership. He also tagged a paint store.

He fired up his camera and showed the officer pictures of his handiwork.

“It’s pretty common for these guys to take pictures of their accomplishments,” Edmonds police Sgt. Don Anderson said.

The man then gave the officer a graffiti tour. Red paint was still visible in spots.

A manager at the car dealership said they’d tried to remove the graffiti with solvent. The paint just smeared and turned the sign pink. The cost to replace the sign was $8,708.76.

Anderson said it’s not always easy to solidly connect taggers to the graffiti they leave behind. Officers have to find the vandals with paint or catch them in the act.

“It just shows we take our police work seriously down here,” Anderson said.

A month after the incident, the man was arrested again. He was accused of breaking into a furniture store along Highway 99. A fire extinguisher was sprayed around the store, a Bible was ripped up and hand lotion was smeared all over. The store was missing a computer tower and monitor, miniature baseball figurines and some Hot Wheels cars.

The man told police he was drunk at the time. He said he stopped drinking because alcohol gets him into trouble.

No word if he switched to coffee.

Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.