Taggers Who Hit High School Lacking Artistic Skills

Benicia High School students arrived on campus Monday morning to 
quite a sight, several crude, spray-painted black tags. One was
a cartoon like mushroom, another misspelled the word "paint." "Slap"
was a reoccurring word on the tags.

Vice Principal Ron Wheat reported the graffiti to the Police Department Sunday at 9:30a.m.  The damage was extensive.

"I think the tags are obnoxious," said junior Vincente Restivo. "If
 graffiti is a work of art that improves the surrounding environment, 
then it wouldn't be a problem. But if it's a bunch of tags about
 something meaningless and serves no purpose other than to get 
attention, the person reflects an artistic expression of shallow
 thought.  In this case, it was not favorable to the school or the 
students."

The graffiti was in so many places that it took all of the school day
 to paint over every tag. Some tags were in tough-to-reach spots: the 
roof of the boys' locker room, the exterior siding of the gymnasium,
 the retaining wall at the back of the campus.

"Basically, these kids were trying to get some sort of attention by
 doing this," said junior Alex Fannin. "What they don't realize is that
 the graffiti they spray paint doesn't do anything but make the
 students at the school feel ashamed of attending it."

Sophomore Claire Roney  said, "I think they, whoever 'they' is, did a
 sloppy job [of tagging] and they were pretty ignorant if they actually 
decided to tag the school."

Police spokesman Lt. Mike Daley said an investigation is under way.
  "Right now we are working on identifying what the tags mean and what 
group, if any, they may be associated with.  We can't tell right now if 
it is gang related."

No suspects have been identified yet; however, the police are working with school officials  analyzing security tapes.