Gang-related graffiti found in Five Points (GA)

[Lucinda F. Boyd]

One or more people went on a damaging spree this weekend, marking cars with gang graffiti near Five Points and other areas that previously hadn't seen gang-related crime, Athens-Clarke police said.

Most gang graffiti has been concentrated in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods in Northern Clarke County and other scattered locations.

Gang members tag their cliques' names in areas they consider to be their turf, or to harass by spray-painting in neighborhoods where rival gangs live.

But police didn't know what significance, if any, the weekend's property damage had.

A woman parked her pickup on Hill Street - a couple of blocks from Athens Regional Medical Center - between 6 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. Sunday, when someone spray-painted the tailgate with Sur 13, the name of a local Hispanic street gang, police said.

A University of Georgia student reported she attended a block party off Moreland Avenue in East Athens on Saturday night, police said, and when she returned to her home on South Milledge Avenue early Sunday, the student saw that Sur 13 had been spray-painted the doors of her car.

Someone spray-painted Sur 13 on another car in the 1500 block of South Milledge Avenue, near Five Points, police said.

Officers investigated a fourth graffiti complaint Sunday morning on Kathwood Drive, where gang members have caused problems for years.

A resident said Sur 13 was spray-painted on two outside walls of a home in the first block of that street sometime Sunday morning, police said.