By ANGELA KILDUFF
Two men appeared in court on Wednesday for what a police press release had described as “an early morning felony graffiti spree.”
Scott Cuilty, 28, and Cameron Jeffries, 24, were arrested early Monday morning and remained in custody until late Tuesday night.
Their arraignment on Wednesday was pushed back until April 20 because neither qualified for a public defender. The interim will allow them to seek counsel. Neither has entered a plea.
Cuilty was charged with conspiracy and one charge of misdemeanor vandalism for destruction of property worth $50,000 or more. Jeffries faces three misdemeanor counts of vandalism.
Police said the owner of New Yorker’s Buffalo Wings on Valencia Street saw two men with black paint markers defacing his storefront after midnight Monday. When he confronted them, the men ran.
Cuilty and Jeffries, who matched the business owner’s description, were detained a block away. Each had a marker in his possession, and police said the business owner identified them as the two men he had seen earlier.
After questioning the suspects, police said Cuilty and Jeffries are also responsible for defacing a wall of the Dolores Park restroom earlier Sunday night and “possibly some other graffiti incidents.”
Both suspects have Myspace pages. Cuilty, an Oxnard native, lists his occupation as vandal, and his photo gallery includes images of Mission District murals, graffiti and tags. As Mission Mission reported, he may also be a “budding author.”
Their arrest comes after a recent series of articles by San Francisco Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius. He sees graffiti as a major problem for the city that has little consequences for the offenders. Read about it here, here and here.
Mission Station Capt. Stephen Tacchini addressed the issue in an email sent March 13. “It is not easy to dedicate police personnel to this type of criminal activity, but we will continue to do what we can while balancing the needs to address violence and other serious crime issues,” Tacchini said.