Taggers Busted in Inver Grove Heights

April 25th, 2008 in Police Calls

From the Pioneer Press’ Police Calls here:

Property damage: Police responded April 7 to a report of a male vandalizing property in the parking lot at King of Diamonds, 6600 River Road. Police found a 19-year-old man with a backpack full of spray-paint cans spray-painting a toll bridge. Another 19-year-old man also was found spray-painting nearby. They were arrested on suspicion of property damage. It was determined they had spray-painted street signs, utility boxes, a manhole cover, railroad boxes and the side and rear of Advanced Auto Repair, 6592 Concord Blvd. The damaged was estimated to be between $500 and $1,000. The suspects told police that they did it to get their name out in the public and to be noticed by other “taggers.”

Now, I’m against tagging and destroying property and it appears that they were damaging a ton of stuff but being that they mentioned that they were found spray painting the “toll bridge” near the King of Diamonds strip club I figured I’d throw some pictures up of the area and what it looked like a few years ago as opposed to now:

Here’s what the Inver Grove Heights “toll bridge” looked like in May of 2003:

Nice Bridge originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

Here’s what that same bridge looks like as of March 2008:

Timewellspent Photo from March 2008 originally uploaded by timewellspent (geocaching.com login required to view profile)

I have also taken photos of that area and you can find two of them on Flickr here (camera).