SPEK (Boston) gets popped

(Borrowed from the Wicked Salem local news)

Salem - Salem police have been working for months to solve their ongoing graffiti cases, and this week they may have their man.

The department’s Community Impact Unit on Wednesday arrested Adam Michael Brandt, 27, of Salem, and charged him with 16 counts of tagging and 16 counts of malicious destruction of property.

Police believe Brandt has been tagging around Boston and Salem for 10 years, and even ventured his graffiti as far as New Jersey and Rhode Island. Boston police and Transit Authority police will follow with their own charges.

The charges stem from graffiti incidents reported in Salem over the course of two years. Since it began last August, the Community Impact Unit (CIU) has been investigating graffiti and the subculture that goes along with it, in Salem and around Greater Boston.

One of the most common graffiti tags — which appears around the city on a nearly weekly basis, according to police logs — is “SPEK,” especially popular near the MBTA.

Salem Officer Dennis King worked with detective William Kelly of the Boston Regional Intelligence Center and Lt. Nancy O’Laughlin of the Massachusetts Transit Police on this particular tag, and eventually found a link. North Reading police also helped complete the investigation.

“SPEK” was eventually identified by police as Brandt, a Dow Street resident who is allegedly part of a graffiti crew known as “ITD” or “Illustrate Total Destruction.”

Police say Brandt is responsible for thousands of dollars in property damage in Salem and communities throughout the North Shore and Boston.



Lt. O’Laughlin has been investigating him for about 10 years, and said he has left his tags on Transit Authority trains and other property. She estimates he’s caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, while his crew, “ITD,” has caused close to a million dollars in damage.

The collaboration among the three agencies led to a search warrant for Brandt’s apartment in Salem and his vehicle. The search produced, police said, evidence including spray paint cans of various colors; spray paint nozzles, clothing, maps, sketches and sketches of graffiti, and a check made out to “SPEK” in the amount of $10 million.

Police expect the collaboration among agencies will yield more graffiti-related arrests “in the near future.”

The CIU released a statement this week about the graffiti subculture.

“The Internet and Web sites like Myspace have taken the graffiti subculture to a sophisticated organized level. The Internet allows the graffiti subculture to share intelligence, photographs and videos of their graffiti. It also gives them the ability to communicate with other graffiti vandals around the world,” the statement says. “The well-known graffiti vandals who are looked upon as icons in the graffiti subculture have branched out and are profiting from their illegal activities. Some have their own clothing lines, some sell shirts with their tags on them, others sell model trains with their tags on the models. The up-and-coming graffiti vandals purchase these items.”

The Web allows people to buy graffiti supplies online, avoiding police and the age restrictions that apply to spray paint purchase in some communities.

The Salem CIU had previously identified two other graffiti suspects, teen brothers who are believed to have created dozens of tags around the city.

For police, there are several reasons to crack down on the graffiti artists. The “tags” they create devalue property and upset residents and business owners, it can be the gateway to other crimes and can lead to feuds between rival graffiti crews — sometimes violent feuds.

To report graffiti or a suspect, contact Sgt. Harry Rocheville at 978-744-0171 or Officer Dennis King at 978-744-0171 ext. 265.*