ROSCOE VILLAGE — If you've pictured tagging as a furtive, spray-and-dash pursuit, video footage posted to social media shows a vandal taking his sweet time in leaving his mark all over a Roscoe Village alley.
A pair of home security camera videos, shared via EveryBlock and YouTube, captured a tagger in action at approximately 4 a.m. Tuesday in the 2000 block of West Melrose Avenue.
The first video lasts for more than two minutes, contrary to the notion that the crime occurs over a matter of seconds. The tagger scrawls symbols up and down a construction fence screen before moving on to spray garbage bins and a garage. At one point he appears to return to his car to fetch a fresh can of paint.
In the second video, the tagger hits up a brick wall in the alley.
Damian Jacoby, whose security cameras filmed the tagger, said he was surprised by how much time the vandal spent in the alley.
It was only the second incidence of graffiti Jacoby has noticed since moving into the neighborhood a year ago.
To report graffiti, call 311 or request removal online. Chicago spent $5 million on graffiti removal in 2014; City Council raised the fine for vandalism from $750 to a range of $1,500 to $2,500.
