Idiotic and Craven Vandals in National Parks

Half of them already are...what do you think a gang tattoo is?

They should have "felon vandall" tattooed on their faces in rainbow letters. See how they like being tagged.

Tyranny enters when good men fail to act.

The photo appears to be a gang tag. It is appearing all over America.
A few years ago we caught a Latino Gang marking their territory on a large boulder in a National Park in Alabama. I have forgotten which gang.
Most restrooms are defaced with gang tags along the Interstates and major thoroughfares and even out of the way places. In the Smokies we watched parents give their kids markers to deface cabins and others using knives. Apparently the city people see all this graffeti. glorified as art on the TV and want their kids to make their mark.
There are many that just don't appreciate or respect that others are offended and their damage is to be repaired and paid for by someone else. Watched a bunch in the Smokies, kids and adults alike chase a mother bear and two cubs to exhaustion, in the fields. If they had cornered her she most likely would have hurt someone real bad.
All we can do is separate ourselves from these people. if we catch them doing it call a Ranger or whatever is appropriate without endangering yourself.

BB_TX wrote:
Everyone should report even the slightest incindent of this sort. If you see such an event, get a license plate number, take a picture, or whatever else can be used and contact local authorities, park officials, etc. The only way to stop it, or at least slow it down, is for those idiots to know someone may be watching. The officials can't be everywhere all the time, there are so few of them and such a vast country. So it is up to us to help as much as possible to protect what we all treasure.

Why bother? They probably won't even take a report. Not to mention: reporting a gangbanger can get you killed!

wa8yxm wrote:


I grew up on a dairy farm, We did not go in for vandalism cause after stacking hundreds of bails of hay up in the loft in 100 degree plus heat, and then helping milk the cows at night.. BED TIME

AMEN to this ^^^
That's how I grew up...

Hard work and earning your way teaches respect for what you and everyone else has.

Jim Shoe wrote:
W8,
In the county where I live, juveniles don't go to jail - they work off their sentence on road details. They pick up litter along the roads while wearing bright orange vests for safety. No pointed sticks - they bend over to pick up the trash with their bare hands and put it in yellow bags that they carry. There's some pretty gross stuff along the roads. It also allows their friends to recognize them - doing stoop labor.
I know one of the Asst. DAs. He says they don't get many repeat offenders, either because of the work or the embarrassment.

Uh, that's WA8..

And yes, that is my point.. It is becoming a bit more common (Work details).

I grew up on a dairy farm, We did not go in for vandalism cause after stacking hundreds of bails of hay up in the loft in 100 degree plus heat, and then helping milk the cows at night.. BED TIME

They have the same details to clean up our highways here too Jim. Also if we furnish a supervisor the county sheriff will send a few prisoners on work release to do maintenance on the battlefield property like mowing, trimming, painting, replacing sign/posts and the like. It is one way we save a lot of bucks maintaining the battle field.

W8,
In the county where I live, juveniles don't go to jail - they work off their sentence on road details. They pick up litter along the roads while wearing bright orange vests for safety. No pointed sticks - they bend over to pick up the trash with their bare hands and put it in yellow bags that they carry. There's some pretty gross stuff along the roads. It also allows their friends to recognize them - doing stoop labor.
I know one of the Asst. DAs. He says they don't get many repeat offenders, either because of the work or the embarrassment.

The problem is the vandals have nothing better (in their opinion) to do. So they need to be given something to do.. Like Digging ditches (The hard way), Raking leaves (Acers and acers of them) (Also the hard way) and so on, enough work to insure that when they are done they have no energy left for vandalism, And of course they need to work off the very generous estimate of the damage. (That is generous to the park service, not to the vandals).

I have heard of judges ordering such a thing, but not often enough.