Tag You're Caught

Tools

Story Published: Nov 12, 2009 at 7:16 PM PDT

By Sade Malloy

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YAKIMA -- Big brother's got a bird's eye view of the city thanks to high tech graffiti cams. If you're caught tagging up the town, Yakima Police guarantee they'll come after you.

If a picture's worth a thousand words this one is just two, you're busted. It's the face of a teen being tagged for tagging courtesy of Yakima Police Departments graffiti cams.

"The last time we did get successful picture and we are looking to prosecute," says Shane Ramynke, Commercial Tire.

It's been five months since Yakima Police Department put up these cameras up they're located all around town including Commercial Tire.

They were getting hit with graffiti once every two to three weeks but now that they've got cameras on their property that's been knocked down to about once a month.

"We've made arrests on these cameras again it's a newer process for us so there are going to be many more arrests," says Tarin Miller, Yakima Police Department.

Though we can't tell you how many teens have been arrested we can tell you this one was. But the punishment process changing.

"They made it where they opened up graffiti pods for us where if a juvenile was caught tagging they were arrested they'd be booked that night," says Miller.

Yakima County's cutting funding for the Juvenile Detention Center. They're knocking down the number of beds by 14. Less space means teens caught tagging will only be cited and released. So while YPD might have the technology, it's the teeth that are now missing

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