Do you see MS-13 graffiti in NoVA? (Fairfax: neighborhood, zoning)

[Tiger Beer]

Do you see MS-13 graffiti in NoVA?

[OrangeFish]

MS-13 Gang Graffiti In Pentagon City | ARLnow.com

[Bigfoot424]

You will see the graffiti at times from MS 13 as well as from others. Often someone will tag something and people assume it's gang graffiti but often it isn't. Most jurisdictions are pretty good at getting graffiti removed as soon as they receive a report on it.

[Caladium]

You'll see some, but compared to other cities it's laughable. It's nothing at all like what you see when you take the train into NYC or drive under the bridges in Baltimore.

If I get a chance today I'll stop by and grab a photo of the one area around here that has some graffiti and you'll see what I mean. It's a bridge over Sugarland Run, and it's a shame the kids had to mark it up. On the other hand, it's not exactly scary. The writing is small, and it's done in purple and pink and light blue. There's an MS-13 reference, but mostly it says things like "Jenny loves Paul 4FR" and "Christmas stinks!"

If you're a fan of grafitti, your best bet is to go into DC. You might find some in the parts of Nova closest to DC. Other than that the most you're going to see is small bits of it here and there (and most of them amateurish, like kids were trying to be "bad").

[Caladium]

Here are some examples of Northern Virginia graffiti.

These are from Sterling, which is on the eastern edge of Loudoun County.

[brooklynborndad]

I want to see GS-13 graffiti.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by brooklynborndad

I want to see GS-13 graffiti.

LOL, how about "Field Grade Officers Rule!" "Thank God I'm not a GS-12"

[tgbwc]

I really see very little graffiti.

[FairfaxGuy73]

My experience has been that graffitti is in most areas, just in smaller quantities. My neighborhood is nice, but someone painted a tag down the hill from here, which was painted over presumibly by the county. Under just about any bridge, I can see something even if it's small. Sure, you can ignore it but it's a little disconcerting when you're jogging alone and knowing that some fairly nasty folks had been in that seculded area. Again, just small signs, but you can see beer cans, and if you know what it looks like drug paraphanalia in most parks, woods, under bridges, etc.

The county (Fairfax) does a pretty good job removing graffitti and their Gang Task Force is great. I also wish they'd beef up the small Zoning Strike Force. It would be a lot worse without their efforts.

There is a hoodlum problem to be sure. How bad is it? Not so bad, but bad enough to keep you kids from being able to go down to the stream and play like you used to be able to do when you were young.

[car54]

Gang graffiti is really quite interesting.

I once attended a meeting where one of the speakers was a member of the FCPD Gang Task Force. He put photos up on the big screen and deciphered them for us. It all means something and looks nothing like the writing on the bridge in another post...it's mostly symbols and gang slang.

For example, a tombstone symbol near the bottom of the tag is a memorial to a departed gang member. If the tombstone is up high...then it's a SOON to be departed gang member they're talking about...LOL.

Gangbangers tag bus seats too...and the officer said if we ever see "187 busdriver" on a seat....that's bad, call us. We asked why and he said, "187 is the California Penal Code section for murder.". We laughed nervously...

I'm not saying that gangbangers are nice people, but people worry about them too much, IMO. They can be very dangerous to each other, but they generally don't go after regular citizens simply because the "heat" it would bring down on them would be unbearable. Can you imagine the police response if they were grabbing kids in the park?

Sort of like how the Mafia is said to have a rule... "you don't kill cops", because the heat it causes is bad for "business".