Volunteers a Key Part of Abatement Effort Beck works with more than 100 community volunteers in the Valley, called the Community Tagger Task Force. His foot soldiers take pictures with Polaroid cameras, which Beck uses to monitor taggers' activities, and report the vandalism immediately. He has served about 50 search warrants and arrested almost as many people, he said. Prosecutors say the law enforcement effort has worked, though it is difficult to pursue felony charges. Previously, the task force could take pictures of numerous works by a single tagger, said Richard Schmidt, deputy city attorney in charge of the Van Nuys branch.
Most charges are now misdemeanors.
Some say the war on graffiti would be more effective if the many individual efforts, like the Community Tagger Task Force, were more centralized. Now, scores of cities and police departments have their own cleanup approaches. Some work through law enforcement, some don't. The Community Tagger Task Force is offered in the Valley, but not in the Los Angeles Basin. Caltrans can't clean up the lingering graffiti on the train overpasses above its freeways.