Kelley joined O’Loughlin’s fight in 1996. Then a rookie patrol cop in Brighton, Kelley, who is currently assigned to the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (where he primarily works on homeland security and domestic terrorism), was asked to address the increasing number of vandalism complaints around Allston-Brighton. Soon afterward, he consulted O’Loughlin, whose mentoring helped him arrest two of his district’s most wanted taggers. O’Loughlin also introduced him to the Broken Window Theory, a proven cornerstone of community policing that espouses — with regard to graffiti — that vandals wear down if their work is quickly painted over. In the words of one writer: “This is all about getting up as much as possible in the most places for the biggest number of people to see. The best way to do that is to paint trains, but that’s pointless if the train never runs or if they clean it right off. That’s why a place like Back Bay has always been so popular — because a lot of us hang out there, and that’s where all the foot traffic is. You can write on legal or hidden walls all you want, but you’ll never get any props.”
The combination of Kelley and O’Loughlin’s experience — they even established themselves as graffiti experts by testifying in multiple cases — and stricter laws ultimately led to the imprisonment of at least two primary culprits, and other peripheral players. “This whole push to incarcerate really started back in 2000,” says Kelley. “Back then, we took down RJAY (real name: James Sullivan) and JIVE (real name: Jeffrey Ivers) with a couple of good investigations. RJAY got two and a half years — three times, consecutively — and he ended up doing four-and-a-half years in the [South Bay] House of Correction. Another kid said he would do anything but go to jail, but we were past that point. What really helped back then was that the community groups started documenting the time and place of these offenses with digital photos.”
Kelley started actively recording too, and he now claims to have information on about 200 tags that he can link to individual offenders. On the community side, he addressed concerned citizens. “People were saying, ‘Oh my God, there’s graffiti, so there must be gangs,’ ” says Kelley. “I tell them to get off the ledge, there are clear differences. But perception is still reality. Only about 10 percent of graffiti is done by gangs, but there’s still a negative impact on the community.”
In line with the Broken Window Theory, Kelley was also an instrumental force behind a 2005 Boston City Council ordinance that mandates property owners have graffiti removed within 60 days of notification. The measure is not intended to punish victims, but instead to encourage landlords to utilize Boston’s Graffiti Busters program, which removes vandalism free of charge. Other municipalities now have similar ordinances in place.
Kelley also declined to discuss O’Loughlin’s demotion with the Phoenix, except to say that he carried her mission on his shoulders until 2007. When he transferred to District 4 in Back Bay and the South End in 2005, he became involved in tracking vandals who regularly hit landmarks, including the Old South Church on Boylston Street. And when he made detective this past December, Kelley incorporated his 10 years of experience tracking graffiti into his new position.
