The sound of the aerosol suddenly breaks the ceremonious silence of the night.
The boat spits out an initial R, followed by an O, the C and another O, which are engraved at number 40 of Paseo de Guadalajara in San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid).
The graffiti artist, an expert in the field, has repeated the procedure more than 150 times, according to the Local Police.
But even the best baker's bread burns and, before he can react, a uniformed man stealthily approaches him from behind.
Aware of his athletic inferiority, the agent tries to mislead him with a question about a supposed woman who was asking for help on that street.
The graffiti artist denies having heard anything, but the police officer has already gained a few meters and informs him of his arrest.
This is the story given by council sources about the arrest in the context of the fight against the kids who, spray in hand, seek to immortalize his signature in one of the free spaces that still remain in this municipality.
A few weeks ago, the Municipal Police captured Roco.
Days later, Kdys - who also signs as Kdis or Kdes - was killed, a minor to whom hundreds of graffiti were attributed.
The City Council has administratively and criminally prosecuted both, while the persecution continues against another handful of graffiti artists who, they claim, have already been identified.
The team in charge of the municipality after the elections last May has spent 200,000 euros on cleaning graffiti in the first seven months of government.
Carlos Bolarín Díaz (44 years old), delegate councilor for Security (PP), details that the City Council's “comprehensive strategy” to unmask graffiti artists began with the reactivation of the security camera contract, expired since the previous mandate.
Although the registry has not made it possible to verify the identity of the graffiti artists, who are always “in sweatshirts and covered up,” it does help to trace the routes of the offenders.
In this way, it has been possible to tighten the fence by identifying the neighborhoods or residences of some.
A neighbor walks through Plaza de los Olivares in San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid), on February 19.Juan José Martínez
The greatest difficulty of the investigation is discovering the graffiti artists in flagrante delicto, the only possible way to link them to the paintings.
With the videos from the security cameras, the Police stationed some undercover officers “morning, afternoon and night” near the offenders' homes.
Bolarín details: “[The Police] ask me to clean the walls where they operate to cause a call effect, they want us to clean them so they can go and do the graffiti again.”
There was already before, when they erased a signature and "the next day they scratched it again," says the councilor, also with messages dedicated to the council such as "mayor, I love you", "this will not be erased."
The City Council cleaned the walls and the graffiti artists took the bait: on February 8, Roco fell and on the 13th, Kdys, while they were stamping their signatures.
If the amount of damage caused does not exceed 400 euros, article 263 of the Penal Code establishes a fine of one to three months - the daily amount of which will be determined by a judge based on the offender's income.
Given the number of signatures attributed to these graffiti artists, the City Council wants to demonstrate that the damages exceed that value, which would escalate the sanctions to between one and three years in prison or fines of between 12 and 24 months.
But, to certify the authorship of the hundred signatures, the work of a handwriting expert is essential, whose opinion must be endorsed by the judge.
🔴 The Local Police unmask another graffiti artist, to whom nearly 100 graffiti are attributed.
After catching one of the most active graffiti artists red-handed last week, this other one has now been identified.
He will also be reported administratively and criminally.
ℹ️🔗… pic.twitter.com/J53rWmUGRi
— San Sebastián de los Reyes City Council (@sansecomunica) February 13, 2024
DR prefers to introduce himself only with his initials “for security reasons.”
He is the judicial expert of the Local Police of San Sebastián de los Reyes, in charge of checking whether the other signatures of Roco and Kdys on the walls of the municipality belong to the identified people.
“When we catch a graffiti artist
red-handed
we already have an indubitable signature, that is, one that does not raise doubts about his authorship.
With that signature we do a graphological traceability to demonstrate that it is the same as the others that we have found," says DR before detailing the process: "To organize the traceability we take into account the typology of graffiti, the way in which it is done ( if the letters are painted from left to right or from top to bottom) or if it has more, or less, pressure.”
If the characteristics are repeated, there is enough evidence to attribute the graffiti to the same author, says the specialist.
The expert has reconstructed the style of both graffiti artists.
Roco uses the Bubble Letters font, it does not leave space between the letters, it writes downwards and tilting the spray downwards, since “at the top it is usually thinner and widens at the bottom,” details DR About Kdys , has concluded that he prefers the Chrome Letters font, with “more angular and not so voluminous letters”, and there is “a high probability that he is right-handed”, details that, the City Council hopes, will convince the judge about the authorship of the graffiti. .
The expert affirms that “the margin of error is very slim”, if anything 10%, at most.
The signature of Roco, one of the graffiti artists identified by the Municipal Police of San Sebastián de los Reyes.Juan José Martínez
The architectural style of San Sebastián de los Reyes, where brick facades predominate, makes cleaning graffiti more expensive.
Removing a signature on a cobblestone wall costs around 23 euros, while on a smooth wall the price drops to six euros.
The Security Department has specified to EL PAÍS that since July 2023 they have cleaned 919 square meters.
The graffiti artists, lovers of adrenaline, even steal the aerosols with which they paint the city, according to municipal sources who, in addition, detail the profile of those captured that "it is not the stereotype of the depressed family, where the kid uses graffiti." as a form of expression.”
More than that, they point to “criminal behavior, because there is no empathy for the affected neighbors.”
The mural where Roco was detained on February 8, while he was writing his signature with spray.Juan José Martínez
The establishment next to the wall where the police captured Roco is the Uomo hair salon, managed by Sergio García, 47 years old.
The man regrets that graffiti artists damage his premises with aerosol engravings: “It is a bit of a chore because you give an image that does not correspond to the one you want to give to your clients.”
And he points out: “It's not something that you say is art either, it's just vandalism.”
A couple of streets away, 34-year-old podiatrist Miguel García—whose clinic has been the target of graffiti artists—allows himself to differentiate between vandalism and urban art.
“It's one thing to give life to an environment, but in the end this only serves to make it dirty,” says García.
On his façade stands out a signature scribbled with spray that he does not intend to erase at the moment: “If you clean it, you know that you run the risk of being repainted.”
When night falls in San Sebastián de los Reyes, graffiti artists and police play cat and mouse.
“We already know who they are and we want to catch them red-handed,” warns the council.
While police pressure increases, the local government is evaluating other measures such as updating the
Municipal Ordinance for the Protection of Citizen Coexistence
in order to aggravate the administrative penalties for this infraction or using an anti-graffiti layer on the paint to make it easier to clean the aerosol.
It is not an easy task.
Although graffiti artists are elusive and know how to capitalize on the natural impunity of the night, the first legends have already fallen.
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Piece of urban art, painted on the outskirts of San Sebastián de los Reyes.Juan José Martínez
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