Chattanooga police and local volunteers took to the streets Monday with paintbrushes in hand to tackle an eyesore in the Glass Street neighborhood -- graffiti.
The volunteers and officers, loosely organized by Chattanooga police and the Glass House Collective, spent about two hours Monday afternoon painting over graffiti tags in an attempt to make the neighborhood better looking -- and safer.
Graffiti can easily grow from being an eyesore to being a real threat to a neighborhood, said Lt. Bakari Welles, who supervises police in the Glass Street corridor.
"Whether it is graffiti, dilapidated housing or abandoned housing, that type of image encourages criminal activity," he said. "And that's not fair to the residents who are trying to beautify that area. Basically, we're working in partnership with the community to take back their neighborhoods."
On Monday, most of the tags the group covered came from the same person, Welles said. The person created the same tag over and over.
"It was the same tagger 25 times in one night," said Teal Thibaud, executive director at the Glass House Collective.
She added that she's working with police to identify the culprit.
"We're not just rolling [paint] over this thinking it's going to be a perpetual thing," she said.
And besides opening the door to all sorts of property crime, graffiti can lead to violent crime, especially when the graffiti is gang-related, said Capt. Brian Cotter.
"[Gang members] will put those tags up at the borders of their neighborhoods and it is like a dare to other gang members, basically inviting trouble, daring them to come into their territory. That's when you get drive-by shootings and all that. If we really want to cut down on the shootings, this is an important part of it."
The police department has been working on covering up graffiti regularly for several years, Cotter added. Thibaud said she and other volunteers always try to have police on-site when painting over gang graffiti.
Contact staff reporter Shelly Bradbury at 423-757-6525 or at sbradbury@timesfreepress.com with tips or story ideas.