Salt Lake City, Utah - A North Salt Lake graffiti tagger was arrested after police detectives were able to match graffiti tags with 150 photos of graffiti tags posted on the taggers's facebook page.

"As a graffiti artist, it appears that he was pretty proud of his work,” Gwilliam said, "They want to be recognized to a certain extent for their work. They are, generally speaking, very proud of what they do."

More at Deseret News

Bellville, Illinois - A new proposed ordinance requires property owners to be responsible for removing graffiti on their property within 14 days of notice by county officials with a fine of $75 to $750 a day for each day the graffiti remains.

More at KMOV.com St. Louis

Colorado Springs, Colorado - A rash of vulgar graffiti tagging in Colorado Springs has gottent worse as the weather has gotten warmer. 

"The way we count graffiti is every tag would be $54.11," explained Mark Davis with the Graffiti Removal Team, pointing towards graffiti on a wall. "So if we were to cover that up, sandblast it off is how we would do it, $54.11 and we probably did 50 of them today."

More at KOAA.com  

Santa Barbara, California - After a four month investigation and good of detective work, Santa Barbara law enforcement were able to identify and arrest a graffiti tagger.  He has been sentanced to 180 days in jail for his graffiti damage.  Success is due to the detective assigned to the investigation who had experience with gang related issues.

More at Santa Barbara Independent

Chicag, Illinois - Five additional graffiti abatement officers were hired by the City of Chicago's Graffiti Blasters to combat graffiti.  An additional 7,400 tags have been removed since the hiring of the new crew.  Graffiti Blaster was started in 1993 by Mayor Daley to address the graffiti problem.

More at ABC7 News Chicago

Sacramento, California - A good samaritan lost his life after falling while attempting to clean graffiti off a highway sign.  Friends of the deceased knew him to be passionate about graffiti removal.

More at Digtriad.org

Tucson, Arizona - Mario Figueroa is a man on a mission.  This 62-year old spends his time cleaning up graffiti from his Tucson neighborhood.  The City of Tucson spends approximately $750,000 abating graffiti.  

Tucson Officer Stephanie Brown estimates that most of the taggers are 14 or 15 years old.  Spray paint is readily available depite a Tucson city ordinance which prohibits spray paint to minors, 

According to Tucson City Spokesman Michael Graham says, "When you're spending three-quarters of a million dollars to eradicate graffiti, I'd say we have a pretty big problem out there."

 "That's money that, from the general fund, that could have been used to improve city parks, or other city infrastructure. instead, that's going for graffiti abatement."

More at News 4 Tucson

Salt Lake City- Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank spoke with Graffiti Removal Supervisor Brent Ahlander urged residents to stay vigilant in the fight against graffiti and report graffiti tags though a hotline and through a new smartphone app.  The City has a full-time crew devoted to graffiti abatement and spends approximately $400,000 per year.

More at Salt Lake City Fox News 13

Ontario - Under the leadership of Trustee Dale Robinson, secondary students are helping to beautify Thorold Ontario. Since 2005, they have painted murals over 20,000 square feet of wall making it the largest mural in Canada.  Based on the New York City's "Broken Windows Policy" abandoned and derilict buildings have been targeted for graffiti removal and murals. 

“The murals were painted on two buildings that were previously covered in graffiti as a response to the graffiti,” she said. “Since we put the murals up, they’d never been tagged before until this winter and they’ve started to deteriorate in spots, so now it’s time to get back at it and take care of it by cleaning up the graffiti and repairing things.

 “It’s the largest mural in Canada – it’s over 20,000 square feet – so we’ve got something to be proud of here.”

More at St. Catherine's Standard

Vista, California - Police arrested a 19-year old woman accused of approximately 300 graffiti tags over a period of nine months. Estimated graffiti removal costs to the city were estimated at more than $105,000.  The arrest was the result of targeted vandalism patrols which both prevent tagging and generates income through restitution costs.

More at U-T San Diego