Video shows taggers covering beloved Seattle U-District mural in graffiti
U-District mini mart mural targeted by vandals
A beloved mural in Seattle's University District was covered in graffiti this weekend, with a crew of vandals caught on camera defacing the painting.
SEATTLE - A beloved mural in the U-District was covered in graffiti this weekend with a crew of vandals caught on camera defacing the painting.
The owner of Joy Mini-Mart says he's disappointed that the artwork on the side of his building has been covered from end to end with tagging.
The good news, a local partnership says it will step in to help.
The executive director of the U-District Partnership says they clean up hundreds of tags a month in the district. He says that contrary to popular belief, although beautiful, murals still become targets.
At Joy Mini-Mart, owner Hyung Rak is known by employees and customers as "Rocky" or "The Rock".
"I’m 54 man," he said, laughing with a customer about his age.
He says he's seen a lot of things in his time operating the market. His most recent frustration, the prolific tagging of the long-standing mural outside his mini-mart.
"This is, I don’t know," he said, shaking his head.
The mural was painted in 2013, and early Sunday, he says, a group of young people apparently decided they could do better, spray-painting over it.
He showed us security footage in which a group pulled up to the mini-mart in what looked like a red van, parking in front of the mural.
Several people got out of the vehicle, some carrying spray paint.
One by one, around five members of the group began participating in brazenly spray-painting over the original mural, right in front of the security cameras.
Daniel Hadera says he sometimes works for Rocky at the mini-mart.
"This is not right," he said, pointing to the graffiti. "Just one day, overnight, they did all this stuff."
He says they covered up a design that celebrated the community with messages of potential hate.
"When they cross something like that, it’s murder," said Daniel.
Don Blakeney, Executive Director of the U District Partnership, says because the mural already had a protective coating, his team can step in to help clean it up.
"When they cover something up like this, it’s really sad. It’s a community mural that we want to see," said Blakeney.
He says in any given month, the partnership cleans up about 800 to 1,600 tags in the U District alone.
"We’ll come out here and remove this, but it’s a bummer that we have to spend so much time and effort on it," said Blakeney.
Rocky says he's had several issues with crime around the mini-mart over the years, feeling frustrated that the cases are often not resolved.
"So many problems," said Rocky. "Only paperwork, that’s it."
Daniel hopes, in this case, there is accountability.
"The way I look at it is just ignorance," said Daniel.
Blakeney says there are around 17 murals in the U District that the U District Partnership helps to protect. He says his team will help Rocky to connect with the police in order to file a report in this latest case.
The Source: Information in this story came from U District Partnership and FOX 13 Seattle reporting.
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