A group of local taggers may have been responsible for up to 120 acts of graffiti in a single week this month, according to Lt. Greg Riegert, head of the department’s Special Operations Unit.

If residents thought they noticed more spray painting around town in the last few weeks they weren’t mistaken. The city’s graffiti abatement team has been hard at work this holiday season, trying, but not always succeeding, to meet the city’s goal of having all reported graffiti removed within a 24-hour period.

Councilmember Glen Becerra brought the alarming news to light at this week’s council meeting.

“We had such a rash in the last two weeks that it wasn’t 24 hours; it was more like 48 hours,” Becerra said. “They worked on the weekend to remove some of these because they hit all across town.”

Riegert said police investigators have determined that most of the recent vandalism was the work of a single tagging crew and was not related to local gangs.

“It’s called a ‘bombing run.’ What a group or a person will do is try to get their name up in as many places as they can as fast as they can,” Riegert said.

Much of the graffiti occurred in a single night, Riegert said, with the group hitting locations in all corners of the city.

“They did not target any particular area. . . . This bombing run was across town, east to west, hitting all demographic areas,” Riegert said.

When asked why Simi police weren’t able to apprehend the brazen group of vandals in the act, Riegert said it’s more difficult than it seems.

“What’s the chance someone is going to see you when you take 15 seconds to spray something on the wall and then jump back into a car and speed away,” Riegert said. “It can be done very quickly, and they have the cover of night.”

Becerra, who discovered a “tag” on the way to drop his children off at school, didn’t try to hide his disdain for the artists.

“It’s a horrible crime, and it just makes the city ugly, and I’m fed up with it,” he said.

To combat the problem, Becerra suggested the city actively pursue a campaign letting people know there is a reward for providing information leading to the arrest of a tagger.

Ventura County Crime Stoppers, for instance, will pay up to $1,000 for information that leads to the arrest and filing of a complaint against the person responsible for the crime.

Crime Stoppers can be reached at (805) 4948255. Callers may remain anonymous.

“I would like to see us run an ad in the school newspaper, or be able to publicize it through our youth council to our youth summit,” Becerra said. “I would like to see our student resource officers handing out pamphlets about this.

“People tag because they want to be known, they want people to see their work. If they want people to see it, they’re obviously talking about it. We want the people they’re talking with to call us and tell us who they are, and we should reward them for it,” he continued.

Becerra said he also wants to see the parents held financially responsible.

“I want the maximum penalty possible, and if you have to go after the parents, we should be holding parents responsible for the kid’s actions if they’re living under the same roof,” he said.

Mayor Paul Miller instructed city staff to look into an ordinance that would allow the city to prosecute taggers if the D.A.’s office was too busy to do it themselves.

Though the police department has identified the name of the tagging crew, they do not want it published because they said they don’t want to give the group the notoriety it desires.

If you have any information related to this latest rash of graffiti, please call Crime Stoppers or the police department at 583-6950.