The last thing Northwest Arkansas needs is gang activity and the ugly graffiti scrawlings these disaffected youth leave under the cover of darkness.
Dogs mark their territory in, well, the doggy way. These goobers who gather in gangs rely on cans of cheap spray paint.
The problem is that the places where they spray their unsightly emblems and foul words don't belong to them. And they can't help but make any community look bad as a whole. The scourge has gotten so bad that some stores in other states have to place their spray paint in locked cages as a safeguard.
Owners of Wholesale Central Vacuum, U-Stor, and a couple of nearby work vans discovered the mess sprayed on their properties on Lowell Road the other day, Springdale police reported.
A news account quoted Jason Durfee, who owns Central Vacuum, as saying he noticed the scrawls on his store in two different colors over five days. The same letters also had been sprayed on his workplace late last year.
Next will come cameras to hopefully document the nocturnal activities. And if that doesn't work, Durfee said he might move his business out of Springdale altogether. So see, this kind of thing does have a larger negative consequence.
Some of the scrawl involved derogatory words, along with the letters TLS, representing a local gang, as well as an apparent rival band of defacers using the tag "Sur" with three dots and "x3." Compounding the problem is the fact that some of this graffiti is specifically hostile toward police since two media-hyped shootings involving law enforcement in other states.
Count me solidly in the corner of the Springdale police discovering who is behind these defacings of private and public property and bringing the gangbanging, Picasso wannabes in front of a judge who hopefully will use their crime as an example of why those similarly inclined would be much better off practicing their illegal, ego-driven "artwork" in Los Angeles or perhaps Chicago.
Still hope for Goff
I'm concerned my column last week about the Arkansas Board of Parole recommendation to deny Belynda Goff her third request for clemency in 20 years might have left the mistaken impression that all hope for compassion and reason in her appalling conviction for a 1994 murder also was lost for the next six years.
The board gives its recommendation on executive commutations and clemency cases to the governor, who then can choose to either ignore or accept that suggestion.
In this instance, the mother from Green Forest whose case and conviction has been riddled with questions, contradictions, omissions and even crucial missing evidence from the beginning, still can hope Gov. Asa Hutchinson now will choose to do his own inquiry and actually examine her 233-page request carefully, then grant her petition after the 20 years she's already spent behind bars.
Goff has vigorously insisted on her innocence in the bludgeoning death of her late husband, Stephen, from the time she was arrested. Her trial produced no direct evidence connecting her to the crime that occurred at their front door after her husband had become involved with an arson-for-hire gang that threatened to kill him only days before he was murdered.
Only five of the seven members of the parole board cast votes to deny Goff's latest request. I can't help but believe most of those commissioners didn't invest the adequate time or energy required to actually analyze her request for a hearing and commutation to time served. Reporter Cheree Franco, who wrote about that, has done an admirable job of following Goff's case.
Those who know me also will realize that I'd certainly not be harping on this matter if I didn't see her request as not only reasonable but Goff as more than deserving of the governor's empathy and assistance. Otherwise, this woman who has helped so many down-and-out female inmates during her two decades in prison must wait another six years before even being able to ask the board for its support again.
You also know I'm not alone here when the vaunted Innocence Project in New York now represents Goff, and when four members of her jury and even the bailiff at her sentencing hearing sent letters supporting this mother's more-than-justifiable request for commutation. I'd encourage all Arkansans to let the governor know your feelings on this sad case. You can learn a lot more details by Googling Belynda Goff.
Anyone seen 'they?'
Anyone else ever wondered who the "they" as in, "they say," might be? We hear it all the time, don't we?
They say sugar is bad for you. They say Bob committed crimes down in Texas. They say that restaurant's about to close. They say it's good for you to drink three cups of coffee each day.
And so it goes day after day throughout our lives.
I've looked for ol' "they" for years now. No luck. If you happen across them, please take and forward a cell-phone picture.
"They say" they continually keep moving and travel in a black-clad group only in the predawn hours so as not to be identified.
It's working, I'd say.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected].
Editorial on 06/07/2015