Lars Hansen was in business only two months before graffiti vandals hit two sides of his store in downtown Durango. Gene Ramirez, with the city of Durango, sprays a layer of paint to cover graffiti on a metal junction box near the 32nd Street bridge. Gene Ramirez, with the city of Durango, sprays a layer of paint to cover graffiti near the 32nd Street bridge.  “It was just a large tag; there was nothing pretty about it,” said Hansen, owner of Handcrafted House at 1323 East Second Ave. “You just feel violated.” The Durango Police Department received 304 reports of graffiti last year and has received 97 reports this year – on track to double last year’s figures, said Sherri Dugdale, assistant to the city manager.  Police made two arrests in 2010 and have made three arrests so far this year in connection with the vandalism, she said. “They’re doing regular investigations,” Dugdale said. “Unless you catch them in the act, it’s really difficult to determine who it was.” The actual number of graffiti reports from last year may be higher because of a reporting discrepancy, she said. Some calls in 2010 were logged as “criminal mischief” cases and cannot be separated. A new records-management system will keep better track of specific calls, Dugdale said. Graffiti tends to appear in spurts, said Tyler Lovato, program coordinator at La Plata Youth Services, which has a program that puts juvenile offenders to work by painting over graffiti. Some of the graffiti is artistic in nature, but the vast majority can be chalked up as “tags” – hard-to-read scribbles that pass as initials. “The majority of them are pretty incoherent,” Lovato said. “Very few of them are artistically backed.” Gangs use tags to mark their territory, but Dugdale said the graffiti problem in Durango isn’t gang-related. She worries about what visitors will think this spring and summer when tourist seasons begins. “We don’t want visitors going down the river or riding on the train and seeing all this graffiti,” Dugdale said. As for the property owners: “It’s probably a nuisance for them because they have to clean it up,” she said. A city ordinance gives property owners 10 days to cover or remove graffiti after a notice has been issued. Some property owners use the Youth Services program to cover the markings. Lovato said the program offers white and gray paint donated by local businesses. If property owners want a different color, they have to supply it, he said. Youth offenders painted over about 75 markings last year, Lovato said. The crimes likely are being perpetrated by youths and college students who are bored and feeling rebellious, he said. A couple of years ago, the Durango Youth Coalition proposed installing a graffiti wall at the skate park where juveniles could legally express their artistic tendencies. But the idea never moved forward through a formal approval process, said Cathy Metz, director of parks and recreation. The city has allowed a mural to be painted under the Santa Rita Bridge, which crosses the Animas River on Camino del Rio. Youth offenders from the DeNier Youth Services Center, a juvenile detention center, submitted a design and had it approved, Metz said. “The thing that’s nice about that is it has never been tagged,” she said. Bayfield also has experienced a spate of graffiti vandalism, said Bayfield Marshal Chris Choate. The graffiti is appearing at Eagle Park and on local schools, he said. Common tags include the letters “dep” and “dep yourself,” he said. Choate’s not sure what it means, and he doesn’t think it’s gang-related. “We’d like any information people have on who’s doing it,” he said. Business owner Hansen, who used to work with youth offenders, said graffiti vandals who get busted should be forced to meet the property owner, explain themselves and clean up what they did.  Jail isn’t the answer, he said. “If they get locked up, they learn more tricks – and not the good kind,” Hansen said. “In my heart, I’d really like to find the people so they could come and redo what they did.” Hansen estimated it cost him $500 to $1,000 in time and money to clean up the graffiti at his business. “It’s just a big surprise, because Durango is a cool place to be, and people seem pretty informed – good schools,” he said.

Thieves made off with about $300 worth of jewelry, a small amount of cash and several pairs of jeans from the La Plata County Humane Society Thrift Store. An alarm was set off at 9:04 p.m. Tuesday inside the thrift store, and officers arrived at 9:07 p.m., said Sgt. Geary Parsons with the Durango Police Department.  Officers checked the perimeter of the building and a storage area but found nothing suspicious, he said.  The next morning, employees reported the store had been burglarized. The thieves gained entry through a window behind a locked chain-link fence that was covered with a tarp and was not visible to officers from the outside, Parsons said.  Anyone with information about the break-in is asked to call the dispatch center at 385-2900 or Crime Stoppers at 247-1112.

Authorities are searching for home burglary suspects who subsequently forged a stolen check at Walmart to purchase a Playstation. The burglary occurred sometime overnight on Dec. 28, 2010, in the Twilight Peaks subdivision near Purgatory at Durango Mountain Resort. One or more suspects entered a home and stole more than $3,200 worth of property, including a computer, Blackberry and iPod, said La Plata County Sheriff’s Investigator Jim Hendricks. The suspects also took two driver’s licenses, credit cards and blank checks, he said. No one was home at the time of the burglary. A few days later, on Dec. 31, two men were seen entering Walmart and attempting to use one of the stolen credit cards to purchase high-end electronics, Hendricks said. The credit card was denied, and the credit-card company notified the owners that someone attempted to use their missing credit card at Walmart. About a half hour later, the suspects returned to Walmart with a stolen check and a driver’s license. They were successful in purchasing a $430 Playstation, Hendricks said. Their images were captured on several store surveillance cameras. The Sheriff’s Office has released images of the suspects in hopes that someone will recognize them. One possible suspect is described as 25 years old, 5 feet 10 inches tall, with short, dark hair, scruffy beard, a “pudgy” face and a double chin. Anyone with information is asked to call Hendricks at 382-7018.