Graffiti artist or vandal?

The Plain Dealer has an article up about someone who was killed by one of our mass transit trains while he was trying to spray paint somewhere along the tracks. The article refers to him as a graffiti artist. Then begins the discussion from people after the article, with the first one saying "why not call him what he is. A VANDAL who destroys other peoples property."

Thus turning it into a screaming match between people who are calling him a thug and a vandal and those saying you should have respect for the family, blah blah blah.

I find it interesting, though -- should he be actually called a graffiti artist? Is that first poster right, is the guy actually a vandal? It is vandalism, after all.

http://blog.cleveland.com/plaindealer/2007/11/graffiti_artist_killed_by_rapi.html#comments

 

I guess he's the one that got tagged huh?

 

Thats a tough one. Thing is, graffiti artists are talented, they just only do it on stuff that doesn't belong to them.

So are they talented, yes...does that make them "artists?"

I say yes to that too.

Do they vandalize property? Yes.

So...seems to me they are both.

 

I've always used vandal, not artist.

The person spraying graffiti may think it's art, but no one else does. It seems a little like calling a child molester a "child lover."

 

Not sure. Certainly there is graffiti that rises to the level of art, but to the extent it's on public property, it's hard not to argue that it's vandalism.

Maybe the recently deceased and Keith Haring can have a long discussion on the topic.

 

It seems like the police are saying he's a graffiti artist, not a vandal. If that's true, then I think it's OK to use that term.

"RTA police say the 19-year-old man who was hit and killed by an RTA train in Lakewood last night was a graffiti artist who had been walking the tracks with two others."

 

I'd be very surprised if the cop actually called him an artist. I would bet that's the reporter's word choice.

 

Today he is a graffiti painter:

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/119520622079350.xml&coll=2

 

I guess heaven needed another vandal. Fuck him, I am glad he's dead. I'd love to see heaven take other vandals.