City worker fights graffiti in Santa Cruz County

Santa Cruz police officers report seeing an uptick in gang-related graffiti. News Channel 5 met with one county parks worker who cleans up the graffiti.

Brendan Hurley has worked for Santa Cruz County Parks for about seven years and says graffiti has been a growing issue.

“Usually daily, so it is quite a bit, some areas more than others. You see it so much it’s just part of your routine,” said Hurley.

We went over to Brommer Park, an area known for gang-related tagging. Hurley said sometimes they have to use power washers just to clean up the graffiti taggers leave behind.

Hurley says the department tries to cover up any tagging within 24 hours.

“It makes me feel alittle bit good to be able to be the one that cleans it up, but, you know, it does get pretty old after a while,” said Hurley.

At the same park we also saw a rival gang marking on a slide. This is something Santa Cruz police said they take very seriously.

“Because of the gang overtones that are involved, sometimes it’s related
to a territorial type of war,” said Lt. Bernie Escalante of the Santa Cruz police.

Hurley said parks department workers report gang-related markings to the police when they see them.

“I don’t know that even some of those are necessarily gang members. They
may be kids that think they are,” said Hurley.

Autumn Jacobi lives in Santa Cruz and said she could have been one of those kids. She grew up around gangs and graffiti but didn’t want that life. At 14, she went to Louden Nelson Community Center, which offers support for at risk teens.

“Most families that have kids that are gang-related don’t have the support
and love that they are supposed to be shown and that support, but if they
come here and reach out to the community to find resources they’ll
definitely help them change themselves,” said Jacobi.