Vandals Tag 4 Schools, a New Move in Costly Game : Crime: Fullerton schools have sustained more than 60 attacks since July 1. The costly damage leaves scars, frustrates workers.

FULLERTON — Workers discovered vandalism at four schools Wednesday morning, the latest in a spate of attacks this summer that is frustrating maintenance workers, costing the city thousands and leaving buildings with ugly scars.

More than 60 occurrences of vandalism have occurred at Fullerton’s 18 schools since July 1, facilities director Jim Lucey said Wednesday. The latest trend is for youths to scratch their initials or gang symbols into the glass windows of classrooms, but custodians have also reported BB-gun shots, broken skylights and windows and typical spray-paint graffiti.

“They’re playing games with us; they’re playing games with society; they’re playing games with the taxpayers’ dollars,” said Lucey, whose department spent more than $60,000 cleaning up after the vandals last year. “They’re criminals. They’re absolute criminals. They need to go to jail.”

Lucey and his assistant, maintenance supervisor Roger Schwalm, blame the movies and media for glorifying graffiti. “It’s been turned into artwork and there’s no art about it,” Schwalm said. “If you deface someone’s property, it’s not art.”

Most frustrating for the maintenance crew are the almost-daily appearance of taggers’ initials or symbols etched into the windows. Officials said they find the same initials every day.

Since the district cannot afford to keep replacing the windows, which cost $150 to $250 each, the maintenance workers sandblast them, leaving blotches of scratchy white on the clear glass.

“This is kind of like the showplace of the school; now it looks like heck,” said custodian Joseph Louis, surveying a row of scarred windows along the outdoor hallway of Pacific Drive Elementary at 1501 W. Valencia Drive.

“We try to keep our schools looking nice because it reflects on us,” Louis said, noting that this is the worst spurt of vandalism he has seen in eight years on the Fullerton cleanup crew. “When you come in and see this, you kind of lose your will to do anything because you have this jerk ruining it.”

On Wednesday morning, Louis found one vandal’s initials scratched more than a dozen times around his school. Meanwhile, a custodian at Woodcrest Elementary, 455 W. Baker Ave., reported two broken skylights. Random letters in red, black, yellow and white spray-paint were seen splashed across three buildings at Acacia, an elementary school at 1200 N. Acacia Ave. And BB-gun holes were discovered at Rolling Hills Elementary, 1460 E. Rolling Hills Drive.

The night before, police reported etchings on three windows at Nicolas Junior High, 1100 W. Olive Ave., and over the weekend, officials found broken windows at Orangethorpe Elementary, 1400 S. Brookhurst St.

“It’s almost like a sport to them,” Fullerton Police Sgt. Neal Baldwin said of the taggers. “It’s all nickel-and-dime stuff but these nickels and dimes add up.”

He said officers will increase overnight patrols on school grounds.

As the district’s facilities department cuts its budget--three painters were laid off this year--unexpected costs for cleaning up vandalism “make a significant dent,” Lucey said.

So far, this summer looks worse than the previous three, school district statistics show. Last year, there were 117 incidents of vandalism in July, August and September; in 1990, the total was 86; and in 1989, there were 87 summertime attacks. And Fullerton’s worst vandalism, according to the numbers, occurs when school is in session.

The hardest hit in the past six weeks has been Valencia Park Elementary School at 3441 Valencia Drive, which has been attacked 13 times.

The worst window-scratching came July 27, when nearly $9,000 worth of damage was done to an elementary school at 2030 Sunset Lane. In June, vandals caused $15,000 in damage when they broke into D. Russell Parks Junior High, 1710 Rosecrans Ave., and tore up the inside, smearing shaving cream and broken eggs on expensive equipment, breaking science slides and stealing computers.