A local college student accused of marking graffiti on a Brown building was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and to pay for building damage in a Wednesday arraignment. He and a fellow student were arrested on March 1 and charged with malicious mischief for graffiti vandalism on March 5.
Community College of Rhode Island student Nicholas Bach, 21, pleaded no contest to the charge and will pay restitution to Brown as well as complete community service under the supervision of the Providence Parks Department if he avoids arrest for the next year, said District 9 commander Lt. John Ryan. If he is arrested in the next year, however, Bach would automatically be judged guilty of malicious mischief, which could incur harsher fines and jail time, Ryan said.
The other perpetrator was 20-year-old Rhode Island School of Design student Michael Todorovich. Due to complications with legal counsel, his case was continued to April 2, Ryan said.
Bach and Todorovich used spray cans and black markers, the latter of which "you can't wash off," District 1 Lt. Michael Figueiredo told the Providence Journal on March 6. The graffiti is still visible on the outside of 121 South Main Street.
The marble and glass structure lies at the base of College Hill and houses the Department of Community Health and the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, among other departments.
Graffiti is fast becoming a familiar and sore sight on College Hill.
"I would imagine it's about 10 to 15 (graffiti incidents) a month," said Stephen Maiorisi, vice president for Facilities Management. "On average in a year we spend (about) $10,000 ... in graffti removal."
Pushing for the "harshest penalty possible under the law," Fox Point Neighborhood Association President Daisy Schnepel sent a public e-mail about the arraignment this Monday to Providence City Solicitor Joseph Fernandez and three local university presidents, including Ruth Simmons.
Schnepel bemoaned not only the "permanence" of graffiti and the "countless" hours volunteers spend cleaning it, but also the fact that the criminals were college students.
"Repeatedly, in our dealings with area universities we are told that higher education students are on a different plane and not responsible for this 'juvenile crime,'" Schnepel wrote, adding, "Apparently, that is not the case."
Ryan said he believed gangs were responsible for several recent acts of graffiti, but that a Providence gang unit specialist identified the marks as non-affiliated.
Local Realtor Ed Bishop, some of whose buildings have been tarnished by graffiti, said looking for vandals in gangs is a misguided approach.
"A lot of people assume these are gangs putting up their symbols," Bishop said. "Over half of the things being done have been by prep school, private school and college kids."
College Hill Neighborhood President Will Touret did not appear concerned with the identity of vandals - only Providence's ever-growing graffiti problem. "It's really gotten to a point where everyone is getting so disgusted," Touret said. "You're starting to see references to graffiti in the newspaper by not just city people but state people."
Touret said the spread of graffiti could lead to further vandalism. "Leave any property crime unfixed (and) it's just a matter of time before those areas become the subject of more serious crimes."
Despite Schenepel's talk of more serious punishment in her e-mail and comments from Bishop, who called for more permanent graffiti violations to be filed as felonies instead of misdemeanors, FPNA board member John Roney said he was satisfied with the current course of action. "It's not very often that they catch someone doing this," Roney said.
Roney, whose law office on Wickenden Street still bears graffiti from a month-old incident, said enough legal attention has been given to the matter that graffiti is no longer "looked at as some sort of prank."
Graffiti has been prevalent outside of College Hill, too, Ryan said. Last Friday, local police saw a teenager spraying graffiti in Waterplace Park and caught him in the Providence Place Mall, where he had fled. Later that day, two teenagers with markers were caught on Pittman Street on the East Side.
Ryan said graffiti artists as young as 13 and as old as 27 have been caught in recent weeks but gave no word on how many of those were college students.
Whatever the outcome of increased police and community attention towards graffiti, Touret sees certain Providence neighbors drawing closer.
"The people who are usually fighting each other are starting to sing the same song against graffiti," he said.
