The writing is on the wall. At least two area municipalities
have a growing graffiti problem.

The Bradford City Police are currently investigating several
incidents of graffiti painted on traffic signs, buildings, vehicles
and even gravestones across the city.

And about a week ago, the city police started working
cooperatively with the Smethport Borough Police when the same
graffiti showed up on borough buildings and signs, according to
Smethport Police Chief Ryan Yingling.

A Bradford City police officer said Tuesday the marks – painted
in red, silver, orange and black -ðhave been found at about a dozen
locations across the city.

“This is out of hand,” a Bradford City Police officer said
Tuesday. “We want to put an end to it.”

Starting in November, with the most recent found Tuesday, the
following businesses or properties have been vandalized: the La
Herradura building on Main Street; the buildings behind the police
station on Kennedy Street; the Bradford Regional Medical Center
Auxiliary resale shop building, SACKS, on Pine Street; the Grade
Lutheran Church on Mechanic Street; the Burns & Burns Building
(and window) off Main Street, J&K Pet Store building located
where Main Street turns into East Main Street; on the equipment and
sheds at Hanley and Callahan parks; gravestones at Oak Hill
Cemetery; and on a tractor trailer parked in a private lot.

Many of those locations have already been cleaned or covered,
police said.

In an e-mail sent to The Era, one concerned citizen wrote that a
lot of graffiti had been found around Jackson Avenue and School
Street, mostly on the back of street signs, on the little bridge by
the playground on Campus Drive, near Barbour Street and on the sign
that Pure Tech Inc. put up at the corner of Campus Drive and
Onofrio Street.

A city police officer agreed Tuesday that the School Street area
and School Street Elementary School and playground had “got it
terribly.”

The case is still under investigation with officers gathering
information, one said. Police are uncertain at this point if they
can prove the incidents are related or if the same person or
persons are responsible.

It was evident in several Polaroid photographs taken by police
at the various sites, however, that some of the same markings
-ðperhaps identifying signatures -ðappeared in more than one place.
Though what appears in the block letter figures is certainly
subjective, they appear to read “MOB” in some places, and “SNLL” in
others.

Yingling said Tuesday the graffiti started showing up in
Smethport about a week ago on at least three buildings and numerous
traffic signs. The markings, he said, are “the same as the ones in
Bradford,” reading “MOB” and “ZAMA.”

Yingling said officers do not know what the markings mean at
this time. No suspects have been named.

The person or group eventually held responsible will face
criminal mischief charges, police said, but the degree of the
charges will be determined by the total dollar amount of damages
incurred by the various victims.