Vandals tag City Hall

Gallup City Hall was vandalized late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. The vandals used scaffolding that was in place for work on the city's mural project to reach the uppermost areas of the building. [Photo by Julie Peña/Independent]

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The Gallup Police Department has no leads in the weekend tagging of City Hall, according to department spokeswoman Erin Pablo.

The department speculates the vandal or vandals used the scaffolding being used to paint a mural on the western face of the City Hall court yard to reach the building's upper levels, which were extensively tagged by Monday morning with gray, black, blue, red and lime greed spray paint. The two murals on either side of the court yard were untouched.

Pablo said the department found no witnesses, but suspected the tagging occurred between 9 p.m. Saturday evening after most of the police officers monitoring a city event in the area cleared out and dawn the next morning.

She encouraged anyone with information to call CrimeStoppers at 722-6161. The department is offering an unspecified reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in the crime.

Ironically, the tagging of City Hall and a handful of surrounding buildings occurred on the evening of Gallup's second annual Youth Street Fair, an event intended to endear the city's youth to its residents and retailers. The event drew hundreds of youth to various venues across the city, including downtown's Children's Library, El Morro Theater and Coffee House.

Pablo said the Police Department immediately considered the connection, but had no evidence that the fair and tagging were related.

Kimberly Ross-Toledo, a community liaison for the Navajo Indian Youth Leadership Project who helped organize the weekend event, called the timing of the two events an unfortunate coincidence. Although City Hall has managed to remain relatively spray-paint free over the years, Ross-Toledo noted that tagging was nothing new to Gallup.

The tagging of City Hall also comes one month after the City Council passed a new ordinance forcing local retailers to keep their spray paints either under lock-and-key or under the constant eye of their staff. The council's hope is that the new rules will make it harder for anyone under 18 currently barred by law from buying spray paint on his or her own to steal the cans and thereby cut down on the amount of tagging around Gallup.

The ordinance was proposed by Councilwoman Mary Ann Armijo, who also happened to call in the tagging of City Hall Sunday morning.

Both the Police and Parks Departments have noticed a sharp increase in tagging this year. Parks Director Vincent Alonzo speculated that it may be a challenge to the city's mounting crackdown.