Albuquerque Police Detective M. Garcia says the best way for teachers to keep gang symbolism out of schools is to learn how to spot it and forbid students to use the loopy scrawls and cryptic vocabulary in the classroom.
Garcia and two other undercover detectives from the APD gang unit decoded the messages and motivations behind graffiti and offered tips on how teachers could combat it during assistant professor Laurel Lampela's Art Education 400/461 class Tuesday.
"Tell them you know what's going on and then tell them it's not allowed," Garcia said to the class of about 15 art education students, most of whom are student teachers. "Let them know that you know."
During the presentation, different versions of which are given to task force groups and school administrators citywide, the detectives outlined the difference between gang graffiti and the typically more intricate paintings of faces, scenes and words known as tagging. The students watched a series of slides featuring often colorful and time-consuming graffiti by tagger crews and scribbled, often violent or threatening messages left by gang members.
Garcia said gang members were typically connected with homicides and shootings, while likening taggers to "elusive little varmints" that cause thousands of dollars in property damage.
"A tagger's weapons are his spray can and a Mean Streak," he said, referring to a brand of marking pen.
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The major difference between gang and tagger graffiti is that taggers change their names often, Garcia said. Sometimes rival taggers will compete for a name by trying to leave as many tags as possible.
"If I got a nickel for every 'Dopey,' I'd be rich," he said. "But gang names and monikers never die."
One slide featured an unintelligibly but intricately written word, painted in an arroyo with several colors. The tagger group, The Bomb Squad, and a roster of its members' tagging names, such as Scope, Juse and Sonic, were scrawled around the word. Identifying details are often included in tagger art - such as New Mexico's 505 area code - emulating tagging practices in Los Angeles. Garcia said taggers especially like to hit vehicles in order to get their message seen in other cities, especially the West Coast.
"Everything we do in New Mexico is based on Los Angeles," Garcia said, adding that taggers are motivated by fame and the adrenaline rush of escaping capture.
And taggers will do anything to surreptitiously spray paint their names in the most challenging places, Detective L. Sanchez said. The gang unit has seen everything from stolen garden hoses to professional mountain climbing gear used to reach street and billboard signs - known in police parlance as "tagging the heavens."
"I have no idea how they get up there," Sanchez said. "These kids are resilient."
Detective C. Mason said taggers could be any age and that the problem is prevalent in all neighborhoods of Albuquerque.
Often, tagger graffiti will have political overtones, such as weighing in on programs aimed at curbing graffiti.
One slide showed graffiti mocking a reward program set up by the city. It read, "$500 posted reward" in yellow and orange bubble letters.
The city has tried to meet taggers halfway by allowing graffiti on certain walls, but the plans always backfire, Garcia said.
"If you give them a free wall, you'll be overwhelmed by graffiti," he said. "We admit, some of it is kind of nice. But it's illegal to do it where they do it."
Gang graffiti often has darker connotations, Garcia said. The crudely written messages often contain number and word codes alluding to planned or committed murders or gang rivalries. Garcia explained some of the symbolism used by Albuquerque's 100 or so gangs to the class.
Teachers are a potential asset to gang prevention, Garcia said, urging the class to keep an eye on students' work and question anything they think might be gang or tagging-related. He said teachers have an advantage because they are typically not targeted by gang violence, and often, gang members will open up to them.
"If you don't accept it, it relays the message that graffiti isn't allowed," Sanchez said. "If you immediately remove their message, their fame isn't out in public."
Sanchez said the most important thing is not to confront the student in the classroom, where embarrassment might fuel retaliation.
"Never deal with a gang member in front of his friends," he said.
Lampela, the class instructor, brought the idea for the visit from similar class lectures she organized while she was a professor at Cleveland State University. She said she had not encountered resistance from student teachers about banning certain types of art.
"I want them to be informed about gang symbolism, and then make their own decisions," she said. "We just want to have a safe classroom."
Mary Martinez, a student teacher at a local high school, said the most important thing she learned from the presentation is to confront students away from their peers. She said, however, that she would have appreciated some ideas that went beyond just banning gang art.
"I wanted to learn more how, in what little way, we can help these kids get out of gangs," she said.
Martinez said she has dealt with students using graffiti art in classes.
"You can see the influences," she said, adding that while she doesn't mind tagger-art so much the gangs are depressing.
