"They were caught red-handed," said police Sgt. Kapio Miller, who along with his watch commander, Lt. Guy DeMello, and district patrol officers have made wiping out graffiti a priority.

Since April, Pearl City officers have arrested and charged five adults and seven juveniles for graffiti-related offenses.

Pearl City's crackdown is reflected in the rise of graffiti-related arrests this year on O'ahu.

According to HPD statistics, police investigated 648 graffiti complaints in 2003 and arrested three adults and two juveniles.

From January to September of this year, 401 cases have resulted in 34 adult and 26 juvenile arrests on suspicion of fourth-degree criminal property damage, a petty misdemeanor because damage is usually under $500.

In the recent arrests, Joshua Eligado, 18, Justin Vasconcellos, 20, and Tiffany Keliiaa-Fernandez, 19, were charged in the Halawa painting. A 17-year-old boy was charged as a juvenile.

Vasconcellos was fined $400 and Keliiaa-Fernandez $150. State Department of Transportation officials estimated the damage caused by the foursome to be "a couple thousand dollars," Miller said.

Eligado's case is pending. He was charged a couple of months before the Halawa ditch incident for another graffiti offense under an overpass in 'Aiea, Miller said.

"They always run," Miller added of graffiti suspects, "but in the 'Aiea case, he ended fighting with an officer, who was injured when they rolled off a wall."

Miller said some suspects have told police they smoke ice and doing graffiti is a way to "vent energy."

Catching offenders is a matter of pride for the officers in the Pearl City patrol district, Miller said. "We're cleaning it up when we're working and sometimes when we're off work," he said. "If you let vandals take over, they're going to think they own the place.

"What we need is for the public to realize that the faster we cover up the graffiti, the less we'll see it because paint can get expensive for them. If community tolerates it, it'll just proliferate."

Home Depot has been donating paint to the Pearl City officers for paintovers, Miller said. The state also has provided paint.

Walls of drainage canals are a favorite location for graffiti artists.

Craig Fenn, a 19-year-old Navy man, was charged Oct. 3 when Pearl City officers caught him in a Pearl City Industrial Park drainage ditch painting an "extraterrestrial outer space" piece with snakes on the wall, Miller said. Fenn had 40 cans of paint and a roller.

"He had sketched it all out and it was a very large piece of art," Miller said.

Whereas Fenn's artwork would have taken hours to complete, some graffiti artists can do a 6-foot-by-6-foot piece in less than 10 minutes, Miller said.

Graffiti is part of hip-hop street culture, Miller said. In the hip-hop world, there are different types of graffiti and not all of it is gang-related.

Some artists are called "bombers" because their art is something just thrown up quickly, usually on freeway walls. Others are just "taggers" who like writing their names. And then there are the master artists, who do larger pieces in places that include drainage canals whose work is opposite of the "dribble of toys (novice artists)."

For most artists, the thrill of "getting away with it" is greater than "getting their name out," police said.

The thrill-seekers who do the overhead highway signs cause the most significant damage. One suspect under investigation has allegedly done so many signs that he's cost the city and state at least $100,000, Miller said.

"You cannot paint over the freeway signs (to cover the graffiti)," Miller said, noting that doing so cannot preserve the reflective coating. "To replace one of those signs costs $20,000."

Miller estimates that graffiti damage locally runs into the millions.

He believes that graffiti painting is an addiction.

One boy, for example, is a high-school dropout whose mother, a teacher, knows that he tags, Miller said.

"She's done everything to get him to stop," Miller said. "She even goes out on days off to paint over what he and his friends do. We've arrested him twice already."

Many of the artists have full-time jobs. A 22-year-old man who allegedly fled from police on March 20 from an 'Aiea site where they were painting a state building, is listed as a vice president in a family-owned business, the officer said.

Although he wasn't arrested or charged in the 'Aiea incident, police know his identity because his car was recovered near the scene, Miller said.

Graffiti won't be wiped out but it doesn't have to be tolerated, he said. "It's like a broken window," Miller said. "If you leave it alone, people will continue to throw rocks at it. If you fix it, it looks better."