Away from the debates surrounding growth, tourism, electrical power and preservation of the environment, Kaua’i has a new illness that everyone on the island can agree needs curing. Graffiti has reared its ugly head. Through the minds and hands of
Away from the debates surrounding growth, tourism, electrical power and preservation of the environment, Kaua’i has a new illness that everyone on the island can agree needs curing. Graffiti has reared its ugly head.
Through the minds and hands of adolescent children who are insecure on their journey of life, the destruction of property with the display of senseless names, called “tagging,” is appearing with greater frequency on Kaua’i.
One particular group, which utilizes a crude inscription of “E.C.M.,” supposedly which refers to the name “East Coast Mafia,” is particularly alarming. The primary concern is the lack of respect for other people’s property.
Equally alarming is that there are individuals loose on this island with the concept that they, in their petty vision of the world, conceive that they are in anyway related to an organization whose reputation promoted grief and violence.
Wake up, little boys. You are on an island in the middle of the Pacific, and your stupidity only brings shame to you and your families. The names of these children that accompany the “E.C.M.” are so unreadable that no one except the perpetrator and his cohorts can decipher the crude inscriptions.
Anyone who assumes that this problem is minor and simply will vanish as children grow is living in the same dream world as the wanna-be taggers.
We need to nip this at the bud.
Parents need to monitor their children’s activities and information they receive over the Internet, television and music entering their homes, which are a prime source of influence in their young lives.
To the “E.C.M.” I say that if it was not for your disregard for the destruction of property, your antics would be laughable. In the future, any person who reads this article and sees “E.C.M.” defacing property on Kaua’i will have a sense of pity for their stupidity, but as myself, will not hesitate to find out who you are, report you to KPD and hope you are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Eduardo Valenciana, Lihu’e
