Just two minutes to graffiti a wall

Graffiti artists Saphire and Danny. Source: The Sunday Times

IT took just two minutes. Armed with spray cans and wearing hoodies to conceal their faces, six members of a tagging "crew" covered the wall of an old bank building in graffiti.

Young, brazen, reckless and utterly without fear of the law, these teenagers worked methodically to cover the entire wall in their tagging nicknames and crew names just 100m from the carpark of the Westfield Carousel shopping centre in Cannington last week.

Motorists drove past, some flashed their high beam, but when the spray cans ran out and the damage was done, there was still no sign of police.

The Sunday Times has chosen to run the pictures to highlight how quickly and easily graffiti vandals can trash public property and why they feel compelled to do so.

"It's not hundreds, it's more like thousands of our tags all over Perth," one 15-year-old boy said.

"Trains, cars, buses, taxis, entire walls, toilets, buildings ... we tag everywhere and anywhere, day or night. You want us to go tag a police station? We'll do it."

With a used spray can in her hand, a 17-year-old girl said: "I tag because it lets all the anger out. I got schizophrenia and bipolar. Other people go for a run to let the anger out, but I go tagging."

Another crew member, a 16-year-old boy, said his crew was on a mission to do as much graffiti as possible to convince authorities to set aside places where tagging was legal.

"We need an area. An old building or a space where we can do it legally. It's a form of art. We're doing this to express ourselves," he said.

Many of the teens, aged from 14-17, said they smoked cigarettes and cannabis. They admitted running from police was part of the thrill.

Members of other crews said they formed organised gangs because they wanted to be accepted and to feel safe.

In Armadale, the True Brotherz, made up of Maori teens, said they didn't commit crimes and weren't violent.

"But if anyone starts on us, look out. It's over. We've got each others' backs," one member said.

The Central Crew hold sway around Central Park in the city with about 40 street kids led by homeless woman and former prostitute "Storm".

She said she recently slashed herself with a broken bottle, inflicting serious wounds, when the Centrals were confronted by a large group of African youths who wanted their "turf".

"They were going to mess me up pretty bad so I smashed a bottle I was holding and started cutting myself to get in first. It freaked them out and they left us alone," Storm said.

Another Armadale crew known as the Armadilians mainly hang out at the local skate park, though some said they did graffiti and smoked cannabis.

Richard, a former member of a Fremantle crew, said he had seen organised fights between crews where "people were smashing the s--- out of everyone left, right and centre".

"We used to get into street fights, break into cars, houses. We never robbed or assaulted old people we didn't believe in that," he said.

"The main reason people join a gang is kinship, being part of something together with the people who protect your back."

Drew, a former member of the Kids on Smack crew, said boredom meant teenagers turned to illegal thrills.

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