Last week, there were multiple reports of properties being spray-painted with graffiti in the city. Social media posts identified an incident that took place in King’s Heights between March 12th and March 13th, while the other happened in Jensen during the same dates. 

17—year resident of Airdrie, Terri Crawford was alerted to the vandalism of her fence by her neighbour on March 13th.  

“My neighbour texted and said, 'somebody tagged your fence'. There were a couple of different tags in red spray paint on the back side of our fence.” 

The incident, Crawford believes, took place overnight on March 12th. Crawford, who lives in Jensen, said she didn’t contact law enforcement. 

“I messaged with a neighbour that has a camera in the back alley, and they went through their video and didn’t see anything, [so] there wasn't much chance of anything happening with it.” 

Maury Karch, the Coordinator at municipal enforcement with the city of Airdrie concurred with Crawford’s sentiment. He said that unless a person is caught doing the deed, very little can be done about vandalism after the fact. He did underline that if a resident notices vandalism after, they should still contact the city or RCMP. Discover Airdrie did confirm with Airdrie RCMP that the Jensen place incident was not reported to them.  

“There hasn't been a lot of that [graffitiing], whether it happens and nothing's reported, of course, I never know, but say you go to your fence now, and it's spray-painted; the unfortunate part [is that it] falls on you to clean it up, not the city or the RCMP,” Karch said.  

Crawford said she is planning to paint her fence come warmer weather, however, she said she is not particularly worried about the incident and whether it points to an increase in vandalism. 

“There's always been people that tagging the area. The one guy down the road, did his whole fence in a graffiti mural to stop it from happening because a few years ago it kept happening to him. No, it's not super worrying, [but] if it happens again, then I have to reconsider that,” Crawford said. 

Crawford underlined that her home does have security cameras, however, because vandalism happened on the fence facing the alleyway, facing southwards, her home security cameras wouldn’t have picked it up anyways. Karch also said that even with video footage, there may not be enough evidence to do anything about the suspected vandals. 

“Even then that might not help; seeing someone with a hoodie driving or running. You're probably not going to have a camera on the back of your fence,” he said. “[So] report it with the understanding that it’s probably not going to go anywhere. Graffiti can be considered criminal, depending on if you catch someone or you don't catch someone. “ 

When asked if Crawford reached out to the other Airdrie resident who had also posted photos on social media of a strikingly similar graffiti tag on her fence in King’s Heights, she said she had briefly spoken to the resident.  

“From what she said, I think they let it go to; there's not much they can do, either.” 

(Editor’s note: Discover Airdrie attempted to contact the other Airdrie resident in King’s Heights but was unsuccessful.)  

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