Ellensburg Police Continue Crackdown On Graffiti, Make Malicious Mischief Arrest

Police in Kittitas County are continuing their crackdown on graffiti and the vandals who create it.

The Ellensburg Police Department says its officers arrested 37-year-old Mario Arturo Valera of Ellensburg on Jan. 23 in connection to a tagging incident that was reported two days earlier.

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Investigators say it occurred sometime in the early morning hours in the 200 block of North Main Street, where Valera allegedly defaced the alleyway side of a building by covering a large portion of it with the spray-painted word "Chico."

Police say it was one of several locations throughout the city that were vandalized by graffiti within the same time frame and caused approximately $2,000 in damage.

Valera, who has since bonded out of the Kittitas County Jail, was arrested for 2nd- and 3rd-degree malicious mischief.

Ellensburg police say the tagging will be cleaned up as part of its new graffiti abatement program, which involves a partnership with the Ellensburg Morning Rotary Club and the Ellensburg Mural Society, and has already helped in removing graffiti from 46 separate locations throughout the city.