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Pays Rewards for Tips Leading to Arrest of Graffiti Criminals
 Secret Witness announced today the Northern Nevada Graffiti Elimination Campaign, a region-wide cooperative endeavor to stop the assault on our community by graffiti criminals.
Through print, radio and television public service announcements (PSAs) and posters, Graffiti Elimination Campaign partners, including Secret Witness, Washoe County Sheriff's Office, Washoe County District Attorney's Office, Reno Police Department, Sparks Police Department and Carson City Sheriff's Office, will begin erasing graffiti throughout the Carson City/Reno-Sparks region.
"It's important that parents and teachers are made aware of what to look for as far as kids doodling on notebooks to practice their tagging," said District Attorney Richard Gammick. "We hope to make this a community education campaign as well as a community enforcement campaign."
Tagging is a region-wide epidemic that destroys property and costs the community hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Secret Witness pays rewards for any information leading to the arrest of taggers while callers remain anonymous. The Secret Witness hotline number is (775) 322-4900.
If arrested, the penalties for the crime of destruction of property are:
- Perpetrator will lose their driver's license
- Perpetrator will have a criminal record for destruction of property
- Perpetrator will possibly serve jail time and work community service hours
- If a juvenile, parents of the perpetrator are responsible for damage up to $10,000
The Secret Witness campaign works to bolster the graffiti hotline and graffiti wagon community programs. The Senior Auxiliary Volunteer Effort (SAVE) organization currently hosts the graffiti hotline at (775) 334-2099, which citizens can call to have graffiti removed. This hotline receives an average of 300 calls per month.
Once the graffiti hotline logs a call, the graffiti wagon is called upon to paint over a tagger's markings. The Washoe County Sheriff's Office runs the graffiti wagon program with community service workers and much of the paint is donated by local citizens.
To report tagging in progress call (775) 334-2121, or Secret Witness at (775) 322-4900 to remain anonymous and collect a reward.
Donated by Innerwest Advertising & Public Relations, the underlying theme on the posters and in the PSAs is Together We Can Stop Tagging.
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