The Centralia Police Department has identified potential suspects responsible for the recent rise of graffiti in town, but since the suspects are juveniles and thus have extra protections under state law when it comes to being interviewed by police, it may take some extra time for the department to resolve the case.
“We are working the cases,” Centralia Police Chief Stacy Denham told The Chronicle on Wednesday.
In the meantime, the Centralia Police Department encourages anyone who finds graffiti on their property to report it, take photos and cover it up.
“The faster it’s covered up, the more likely they won’t tag that wall or that surface again, because the idea is they want it up. They want to be able to see it,” Denham said. “The longer it stays up (before) you cover it up, the more likely it is that they’re going to tag it again.”
The most recent rash of graffiti around town isn’t obviously associated with gang graffiti, according to Denham, but it’s difficult for law enforcement to tell until they make an arrest or have more intel on why the graffiti is going up.
“A lot of times, what we get is we have kids who want to be gang members, things like that, or people who just like doing graffiti,” Denham said. “(The tags) can resemble what looks like gang graffiti … because they're doing it to be cool. They're doing it even though they really have no affiliation or real light affiliation.”
Graffiti becomes a substantial concern to law enforcement when conflicting graffiti, or when a gang symbol is crossed out and painted over with another gang symbol, pops up.
“That is usually when we start getting concerned about things starting to heat up,” Denham said. “We haven’t seen that.”
Gang members use graffiti for numerous reasons: claiming and marking territory, making challenges or warnings to other gangs or gaining notoriety, according to Chronicle reporting done on a wave of gang-related graffiti in Centralia in 2013.
If one gang crosses out another gang’s graffiti, it is interpreted as a sign of disrespect, which often leads to retaliation, former Centralia Police Chief Bob Berg told The Chronicle at the time. Retaliation could mean anything from fights to additional graffiti or drive-by shootings, like the ones in the summer of 2007, Berg told The Chronicle at the time.
Two Centralia teens were ultimately found responsible for that 2013 string of graffiti, according to previous Chronicle reporting.
The rules for police interactions with juveniles have changed since then. Specifically, a law passed by the state Legislature in 2021 requires law enforcement to connect a youth 18 years old or younger with a lawyer before the youth is questioned by law enforcement in connection with a crime, and when law enforcement officers detain a youth or request that the youth consent to a search of their person or property. The law allows law enforcement to speak with youths without connecting them to legal counsel if law enforcement believe the youth is a trafficking victim or if the youth’s life is in imminent danger.
Revising the laws affecting law enforcement interactions with youth is one of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs top priorities for the ongoing 2023 state legislative session, according to a news release from the organization.
