While Roseville High School students were on spring break, RHS administration spent over $1000 to remove the graffiti on campus. The graffiti was painted sometime during the break, reported, and removed before students returned to school by a private contractor hired by RHS administration.

     Graffiti has been financially troublesome for RHS.

    “It’s not like we have money coming out our ears,” said Coleman. “This is the worst that we’ve been hit in the years that I’ve been here.”

     The graffiti was painted around the front of the administration building, the library and on two art room doors. According to assistant principal Jon Coleman, the graffiti was reportedly related in content to the Sureno gang and it is in this way that Roseville Police Department was able to identify the two major suspects.

    Included in the various words and phrases on the wall were two artists gang names, which the Roseville Police Department kept on file. However, the two suspected perpetrators have not been arrested. Although these students are allegedly no longer attending RHS, they are reported to be minors.

     RHS maintenance workers will be painting over the previously sprayed surface with a coating to help prevent spray paint from adhering to it in the future.

     More drastic fool-proof methods are unable to be implemented at the time.

     “I would love to have video cameras, but the cost is huge,” said Coleman. “Right now we don’t have any money.”

     Concern for graffiti and its content has been expressed from various sections of the Roseville community.

     “Parents that I talked to were upset,” said art teacher Patricia Leong. “They were wondering ‘Why are they tagging up our door.’ Students noticed it and were disturbed by it. It’s not like they were like ‘oh cool’.”

     Leong’s perception of the student’s feelings toward the graffiti was echoed by senior Roberto Palme.

     “I think it’s dumb that kids who live in a town named after a flower think they’re in gangs and think that they have to prove it by writing all over our nice school,” said Palme.

    In the eyes of administration, in order to prevent this kind of crime, a reliance on members of the area does play a role.

     “The school is supposed to be the center of the community,” said Coleman. “I hope that other community members would help support us in stopping people from defacing our property.”