“It’s incredible how afraid these graffiti vandals are of Nancy O’Loughlin,” says Kelley. “For the years that I was doing this without her, I kept hearing rumors from [writers] that she was doing this and this and that against them, but she wasn’t even helping me. But now she’s [returned], so our goal since last December has been to show everybody that the vandal squad is back.”
BOMB SQUAD: Boston Police Detective William Kelley (left) and MBTA Police Lieutenant Nancy O’Loughlin have been at the forefront of the fight against graffiti in Eastern Massachusetts. |
All in together now
The Tuesday after Labor Day, Kelley received a call from Salem Community Impact Unit Officer Dennis King. Though King had attentively tracked graffiti for a year at that point, he was unfamiliar with a pair of tags by CAYPE that surfaced over the holiday weekend. “Dennis called and told me they got hit with two tags from CAYPE, and I started the ball rolling right away,” says Kelley, who had been pursuing this particular writer since 1997. “[CAYPE] violated probation [which he was on for admitting to 24 counts of vandalism], and now he’s doing a year. It started with Salem seeing the tag, and then us putting together all the warrants and complaints.”
The call that buried CAYPE was one of many consequential communications between King and Kelley that have occurred since this past December, when the former first phoned the BPD to inquire about SPEK. Much like Kelley, King says he was eager to nail the Reading writer; his office at Salem Police Headquarters has a three-inch binder solely dedicated to SPEK tags. But while Kelley claims to have been on to SPEK since arresting him in March 2007 for marking a bar bathroom in Back Bay, King was clueless about his real identity. His search for answers would forever change the way police scrutinize graffiti cases in Eastern Massachusetts.
As this article goes to print, SPEK’s fate is likely being further pled out in Boston and Haverhill courts. Between Kelley’s prior knowledge and King’s documentation of his alleged sprees, Salem police were able to obtain arrest and search warrants for the 27-year-old lumber-yard worker and his Salem apartment this past February. Evidence discovered in his home, such as SPEK sketches and spray nozzles, led to him being charged with 16 counts each of tagging and vandalism, which earned him $38,000 in fines and restitution, four months in prison, and the prospect of four additional years if he violates probation after parole. “The object of [King’s] desire was the same person who I was working on at the time,” says Kelley. Adds King: “I called [Kelley], and things really went in motion. The sharing of instantaneous information is very helpful — we don’t have to wait a year or two to find them anymore or to figure out what they did somewhere else.”
It seems so obvious that police would pool resources, and comparable collaborations have long been used to track drug dealers and other criminals. But cooperation was, until recently, virtually unprecedented on the graffiti front. SPEK’s attorney, William Keefe, confirms that authorities are now dedicating more energy to stopping prolific taggers than ever before in his 18 years of defending accused vandals.
