Before his arrest on Thursday, the San Francisco “serial tagger” hit dozens of buildings and sidewalks in the Castro.
Now facing 10 felony and 17 misdemeanor counts , Andrew Yarbrough, 18, was arrested in Dolores Park, following a call to 911 by a neighborhood resident. As reported by KTVU, when police arrived, Yarbrough was carrying spray paint and holding up a cell phone to photograph a recently painted tag on a wall near the newly constructed tennis courts.
Yarbrough had tagged the words “cryst” and “sheep” all over the city, but according to reports on the website NextDoor, over 50 were counted between the Upper Market and Dolores Park.
In response to questions by reporters as he was being moved from the police station to the Hall of Justice, Yarbrough explained that “cryst” refers to crystal meth and “sheep” to “conformist gentrification. “
Among the most visible neighborhood damage was a tag on the awning of For Your Eyes Only Optometry at 552 Castro, between 18th and 19th. Owner Dr. Kathleen Kennedy, O.D., told KTVU that she had to replace the awning at a cost of $3,600. A building at Castro and Market, adjacent to the Jane Warner Plaza was also tagged, and a handful of tags appeared on garage doors near 19th and Eureka, among many others.
On Friday evening, we found Andrew D’Amore cleaning the graffiti off the front of his residence at 3944 18th St. D’Amore said there were “a few” other buildings on the block between Noe and Sanchez that had been hit.
