ELLSWORTH, Maine — A 15-year-old Ellsworth boy was issued a summons Tuesday on a charge of criminal mischief after he allegedly drew a stylized diamond and the initials “B.D.” on a spate of buildings, Dumpsters and street signs.
The boy, with his parents, admitted to police that he was the graffiti culprit, said Ellsworth police Detective Dotty Small.
According to the teen, “B.D.” stands for “blood diamond,” Small said, and the string of about 20 diamonds was expected to total just less than $2,000 in property damage.
“He really likes graffiti art, and apparently paper wasn’t doing it for him,” Small said.
The boy became the Police Department’s chief suspect after several tips from Facebook. He also was spotted in surveillance video after he tagged property near Ellsworth Public Library.
Small said she caught the teen red-handed Monday when he left Ellsworth High School just after 1 p.m. and crossed the street to the Eastland Park apartment complex on State Street.
“He was acting kind of jittery and kept fumbling with something in his pocket,” she said. “I saw him shaking something, and I thought it was a spraypaint can but it was a paint marker. Then he started tagging the Dumpster.”
The teen has a court date set for September, Small said, and likely will have to pay restitution and work to clean up the graffiti.
“He’s actually a pretty good artist. There are some out in the street that are really well done,” Small said. “He just wasn’t thinking. He didn’t seem like a bad kid at all.”
Follow Mario Moretto on Twitter at @riocarmine.
“The boy become the police department’s chief suspect”
What is this, foghorn-leghorn?
I say, I say, I say….
Ok, that was kinda funny.
“He’s actually a pretty good artist. There are some out in the street
that are really well done,” Small said. “He just wasn’t thinking. He
didn’t seem like a bad kid at all.”
How much thinking does it take to know that vandalism is wrong?
I doubt he really thought of dumpsters as someone’s property for example. In his mind likely it was more of a victimless crime. I’m not agreeing, just saying.
i am curious, why would we even have a crime if there is no victim?
“He didn’t seem like a bad kid at all.” I’m sure he’s not he just lacks impulse control, respect for other peoples property and possibly proper supervision. Especially since he continued to vandalize property after it was all through the news that they were looking for him.
Apparently the two beauties from his portfolio showcased in this rag are his earlier works? Cause I fail to see any intrinsic artistic merit in any way in the property destruction shown above.
The cops sounds just as bad as alot of parents
“He’s actually a pretty good artist. There are some out in the street that are really well done,” Small said. “He just wasn’t thinking. He didn’t seem like a bad kid at all.” Our world is screwed. Fact is, he is a criminal and knows right from wrong….guess the parents never taught him that…wow
Agree 100%. Yeah, he is just a good kid, sure. Good kids don’t deface the property of others like this. I wonder if the parents knew he had done it before the cops caught him. “He just wasn’t thinking.”…yeah, over and over and over again. “Not thinking” is locking yourself out of your car. I am a little surprised this detective is downplaying this. Way to send a clear message to would be criminals.
Did you stop to think that she may have also said along the lines of- had he directed his talent elsewhere, like an APPROVED medium, he wouldn’t be in the trouble he’s in? And that the BDN chose to omit that info? Not all quotes are published the way they were truly said. Leave out a sentence before or after the quote, and it can take on an entirely different meaning.
Well, then maybe you should call the BDN news and have it corrected since you are the officer of the officers mother then :)
She is right, I know for a fact that the BDN doesn’t always print the whole statement. I was misquoted in the BDN very recently and what they omitted clarified the rest of the statement. It sounded stupid without it, so much that it drew a few comments on here, but it made for a more interesting read!
Yes, treat every infraction as a capitol offense and every mistake maker as a hardened criminal.
Let’s not change the charges against this punk…. “Defacing Public Property “
With a little direction he could make a good living with his talents. Any one in Elsworth need a good artist??? Give this kid a chance, he might suprise you.
Yes thats is good work he did i like it to bad they don’t have a place were they can do there work let it stay for a while pain over it an put some thing new up
LOL. Come on it is art. Iwould rather him tag a dumpster then sitting back and doing dope. Besides he will probally be made to clean it all up. That will be more then 90 percent of all the hard core criminals written in the BDN.
Art on someone else’s property without permission is not art, it is vandalism. Now give that kid a place with permission to create his images, and then we can talk about art.
LOL. Get a grip. He will be made to clean it up. Say he is sorry. This will be more punishment than the person or persons that broke into Matt Stairs house, and stole his stuff.
The fact that it’s vandalism doesn’t mean it’s not art. The two are not mutually exclusive.
you are right, art is self-expression. self-expressing yourself by defacing other’s property is not socially acceptable. somebody give this kid a place to self-express legally and reinforce the difference between right and wrong ways to self-express.
Then put a dumpster in your yard and invite this punk over to “beautify” it for you. So if somebody defaces somebody else’s property, it is ok because:
A) it is art??
B) he will probably have to clean it up anyway
Well, there we have it, just let the riff raff take over everything.
PUNK ! What the hell is wrong with you people. He is a fifteen yr old kid. Calling him a punk is just wrong. I have to wonder if everyone that writes in here has any kids that ever made a mistake. Yeah, I’m sure he knew better than to do this and it should not have happend,but calling him names is not ok. Kids that trash grave stones are punks. Kids that break into cars and slash tire’s are punks. I think this kid was trying to make a point. He did and he got caught. Name calling is not the answer to helping a kid out. Grow-up. PUNK !
Oh get a grip.I know it isn’t right, but tagging dumpsters or doing meth? If it keeps him off smack he can tag my dumpster, and I’ll hang your class picture beside it. LOL
Hopefully this will at least raise awareness about blood diamonds. WAY worse than the property damage that Americans get their panteez in such a bunch about.
No one really seemed to care when “The Pigeon” was on the loose…it didn’t wash off as easily as they said it should.
No Crips and Blood Gang Bangers yet for Ellsworth.
Graffiti is not art. It is vandalism.
Some of the graffiti in Augusta is believed to have been done by the Crips.
In urban areas they say, “Once you see graffiti, you have already lost the neighborhood.”
Calling graffiti ‘art’ is the mentality of a degenerate civilization, the same civilization which calls the murder of the unborn “a woman’s choice.”
Graffiti is to art what Rap is to music ~ an INSULT !
It’s too bad that you don’t understand either.
have survived doing both – understand far more than you assume
Why don’t they do something with these talented young artists so they don’t feel the need to deface property? Maybe have them doing murals or something along those lines. Get them involved within the art industry.
SPRAYPAINT his face & let him walk around with it til it wears off.