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LA Tagging Crew Suspects Arrested In Multi-City Raids

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — A multi-city raid on members of a South Los Angeles graffiti crew ended in nearly a dozen arrests on Wednesday.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies and police stormed 26 different locations around the Southland to arrest at least 10 members of the tagging crew known as ASC.

KNX 1070's Pete Demetriou reports the group is allegedly responsible for inflicting hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to MTA trains and local schools.

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The raids yielded evidence in what the sheriff's department suspects to be over 1,600 instances of graffiti damage in recent months.

"We found several items with their monikers spray-painted or tagged on it with markers, we found a fire extinguisher which was loaded with paint," said Sheriff's Transit Services Captain Holly Perez.

Perez credited a new computer system in which volunteers input vandalism locations and then use available data to track down suspected taggers.

Photos, computers, marking tools and other seized evidence will be used in future felony charges against the suspects, Perez added.

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