PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — Unless you never leave your home, you can’t miss it — graffiti, covering freeway walls, and so much more.
Seeing the extent of the problem would lead most people to believe it’s being ignored by the city.
Not true.
KATU News had a chance to ride-a-long with Portland Police Officers Nathan Kirby-Glatkowski and Amelia Flohr.
On this day, they’re on graffiti duty, hoping to track down those responsible for littering our city with paint. But that’s not all they do.
Before we even head out on the graffiti trail, they’re called to assist on a call of a man assaulting someone near Portland State University. That’s typical for a police bureau that’s short staffed.
Soon, we’re back on the road.
“Obviously, we’re still in uniform, listening to the radio, and we’re also responding and augmenting and assisting patrol, as you saw this morning, so that can sometimes swallow an entire day,” said Kirby- Glatkowski.
The two officers are part of the Neighborhood Response Team. Each precinct has one — kind of the Swiss army knife of the Portland Police Bureau.
Flohr was hired right out of college, while Kirby-Glatkowski worked in nuclear weapons disarmament prior to joining the police force.
They are determined to make a dent, especially after the bureau’s graffiti task force was cut in 2015.
“I think as that team went away, less and less of a concerted approach on graffiti existed — still patrol of course; they still stop graffiti guys in the act, they still made arrests, but actually going out there and seeking the worst offenders, wasn’t really happening,” said Kirby- Glatkowski.
Until now.
The pandemic and civil unrest saw a significant uptick in the amount of graffiti on the streets.
BELOW: Watch an extended version of Steve Dunn’s story.
These two spend hours tracking down the most prolific graffiti offenders and building cases for them, turning them over to the district attorney for prosecution.
And they are making progress. In the last couple of years, they’ve busted seven or eight big cases, and many more small ones.
When you see more graffiti, it doesn’t always mean the vandals are more active. Many times, it’s because of a gap in funding for the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
“Once you start looking for graffiti, before I started this part of my job with Kirby, I would notice it, but it wasn’t something I was particularly on the lookout for. Now that it is part of my job and something I do find interesting, I see it absolutely everywhere. You can’t unsee it, once you know what you’re looking for,” said Flohr.
But does the constant painting and repainting over graffiti really make a difference? These two say that if you paint over it every three months, not so much, because the taggers want to be visible. But if a wall gets cleaned every day, you’re way less likely to have a tagger come back there. They’ll likely go elsewhere.
“It really bothers a lot of our citizens that graffiti is up, makes them feel more scared, that there’s more crime. Seeing that every day is having a big impact on people, so helping our, mitigating that, feels good,” said Flohr.
These two say that between 50 and 100 people are doing most of the graffiti, with a few hundred more doing the rest.
Some come from out of town, just to tag in Portland.
The officers point to the massive effort by a number of partnerships in the city to battle the graffiti problem. That includes business owners, business associations and volunteers.
They know it will take more than a brushstroke or two to clean things up.
But keep this in mind: If graffiti is your thing, officers Amelia Flohr and Nathan Kirby-Glatkowski are likely headed your way.
“If you are extremely impactful and very prominent, and you’re out most nights doing graffiti, you’re going to be on our list, and we’re going to come and hold you accountable for that,” said Kirby-Glatkowski.