clayman Posted July 7, 2006 Report Share Posted July 7, 2006 Wife and I hit the sack about midnight last night. Around 12:45 something woke her up and she said "what's that noise?" Now, we live in the middle of the Twin Cities. We've got a real gem of a home in an awesome neighborhood on a park. The only down side is that it sits right next to Burlington Northern tracks and we've got fairly constant train activity that we've come to be used to. Anyway, I get up and go to the window and start nosing about and I realize what she heard. Someone was over on the tracks about 50 feet away from my bedroom, tagging a train that was parked there waiting for the go ahead from their dispatcher to move on up the line. I checked first to make sure there was nobody actually in my yard. I wasn't sure if there was more than one person, in fact it only sounded like one person. You could hear them walking on the rocks of the rail bed, you could hear the rattle of the spray cans, and could even hear the paint spraying, and the breeze was carrying the fumes right back into my bedroom window. I also noticed there was an unfamiliar car parked in front of my house that I was sure belonged to the tagger(s). So I got on the horn to 911 and not ten minutes later a squad pulled up. He glanced over the car, and then scanned the trees between my house and the tracks. When he did this the tagger ran from the train into the trees and hid. The squad pulled away and went down the block a bit and telephoned me. I told him what I observed when he pulled in and that I was sure the tagger was still sitting in the trees next to my house. A couple of minutes later another squad pulled in, and he and his partner come out on foot. They immediately found the person hiding in the trees. It turned out to be a 17 year old girl. After a few minutes of questioning in the back of a squad car she completely ratted out the two other guys she was with. Another officer that was looking on the other side of the tracks found a ditched backpack, but the other two were long gone. The responding officer came to my door and got a statement from me and said "this is an easy one, thanks to you." Not only did she rat out her friends, but the cops had the friend's car and he wasn't getting it back any time soon. The only down side was that the train they tagged left before they could observe and record the graffiti on it. But I'm certain there will be a tresspassing charge and the girls confession along with my observations should be enough to prosecute them for the grafitti. It was probably nearly 4:00 am by the time I was able to fall asleep. With only a few hours of sleep, my long night is quickly turning in to a long tired day at the office. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OJR Posted July 7, 2006 Report Share Posted July 7, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers Interesting night! Glad they caught them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buckee Posted July 7, 2006 Report Share Posted July 7, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers Good to see them get caught. Reminds me of yesterday morning. The house I'm working on is on a corner. I was up the ladder painting the trim on the side of a house, and I hear a dog barking and people talking, getting closer and closer. Then, a German Sheppard and two police officers run past me, on the trail of who knows what?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texan_Til_I_Die Posted July 7, 2006 Report Share Posted July 7, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers [ QUOTE ] Someone was over on the tracks about 50 feet away from my bedroom, tagging a train... [/ QUOTE ] You mean vandalizing a train, don't you? Let's call it what it really is. Good job on calling the cops. Glad they took the time to come out and take care of the situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest woodsnwater Posted July 7, 2006 Report Share Posted July 7, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers Glad they caught them. You did the right thing. I can't understand why they do these things. It makes no sense to me. Be careful as your home could be their next target if they think you busted them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joebobhunter4 Posted July 7, 2006 Report Share Posted July 7, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers good thing they caught him... but still... you gotta admit. those paintings are pretty cool haha. i dont know how they can be that good of artists with spray paint cans unless maybe they have like a stencle(sp) or something maybe? and just the other night some guy driving by my house fell asleep... i dont know how in town too? and ran into my neighbors fence... the cops came and everything so it was pretty interesting... i guess he just missed there house and missed there deck by like a foot... so that was a close one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clayman Posted July 7, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers [ QUOTE ] Glad they caught them. You did the right thing. I can't understand why they do these things. It makes no sense to me. Be careful as your home could be their next target if they think you busted them. [/ QUOTE ] That thought crossed my mind, and when the girl was sitting in the squad and the officer came in to my house to talk to me, I'd bet she put two and two together and thinks I had something to do with them getting caught. They'll be the first ones the police talk to should anything happen at my place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Finn Posted July 7, 2006 Report Share Posted July 7, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers Good job. My uncle lives in Cottage Grove and my boy will be there this weekend to fly home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clayman Posted July 12, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 12, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers So...the mail comes yesterday, and to our surprise, we got a letter form the city. These brain dead folks sent us a NOTICE TO REMOVE GRAFFITI stating "Dear Owner and/or Occupant: We have received a complaint of graffiti on your property: Police report filed for graffiti on property. ..." It goes into detail about how we should work with the city to remove the graffiti as soon as possible, and to file to proper reports with the police etc. It also says if we don't remove the graffiti they'll send a crew out at $225/hour. We called them and told them about their mistake, but we still have to jump through some hoops now. The sad part of all this is that there IS NO graffiti on my property. The taggers that I reported were on BNSF property tagging a parked train! But because some idiot misread the police report from the incident that I reported I have to do back flips to fix the error and end the paperwork trail that they created. What a bunch of hooey. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buckee Posted July 12, 2006 Report Share Posted July 12, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers Sounds like somebody is sleeping at City Hall ..LOL Sounds a lot like our city government. Good luck with the Paper Chase. Remember the movie? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texan_Til_I_Die Posted July 12, 2006 Report Share Posted July 12, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers Just goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhunt Posted July 12, 2006 Report Share Posted July 12, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers I am so glad I live out in the country. Sounds like a bunch of crap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clayman Posted July 12, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 12, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers Good news. Wife made a couple of phone calls and got it all cleared up. Good thing she did it, because I was not in the right frame of mind to deal with these folks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buckslayer Posted July 12, 2006 Report Share Posted July 12, 2006 Re: Long night - cops and graffiti taggers That stinks, not only did you have to lose sleep - but you had to jump through hoops because you tried to be an upstanding citizen... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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