http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1122681,CST-NWS-graff23.article
If you haven’t heard about the rest of these two alleged writers yet check out the link. They are facing a serious case and have serious charges against them. see article link above or the Chicago Sun Times’ story below.
Pair of global graffiti suspects tagged by cops at last
MADE U LOOK “|” Started here, accused of spraying way across Europe
August 23, 2008
BY FRANK MAIN Crime Reporter/fmain@suntimes.com
New York cops have busted a Bonnie and Clyde pair of graffiti artists who belonged to a tagging crew that began in Chicago, police said Friday.
Jim Clay Harper, 23, of Wilmette, and girlfriend Danielle Bremner, 26, of New York, traipsed across Europe spray-painting graffiti on trains in England, Spain and Germany, police said. He signed his work with the tag “Ether” and she called herself “Dani,” police said.
Jim Clay Harper and his girlfriend, Danielle Bremner left their graffiti tags “Ether” and “Dani” on train cars in London; Madrid, Spain; Paris; Frankfurt and Hamburg, Germany, and elsewhere.
They were members of Made U Look, a graffiti crew that was born in Chicago but made a splash in New York when 10 subway cars were painted like a Monopoly board in 2006, police said.
“They have done a lot of damage,” New York police Sgt. Kevin Cooper said. “They are more organized than everyone else.”
Made U Look also was suspected of spray-painting two train cars at the Indiana Transportation Museum in Noblesville in 2003. Its tags are on bridges and underpasses across the country.
On Thursday, Bremner was arrested at O’Hare Airport and Harper was nabbed at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. They are charged in New York with felony criminal mischief and burglary.
On one Web site, Harper has posted several abstract artworks under his own name. Graffiti tags are in one of the pieces.
In a 2001 posting, he said he was 16, called himself Jim Clay Harper VI and gave his alias, Merlin. He said he already had a year’s experience in graphic design and two years’ experience in Web design.
A relative of Harper declined to comment about him. His father, Jim Clay Harper V, died in 2004.
Bremner is a New Yorker who attended the Fashion Institute of Technology. She was under investigation for two years, police said.
This year, Chicago stepped up its battle against graffiti vandals by moving hundreds of cases from the courts to administrative hearings where they’re more likely to result in punishment, said Matt Smith, spokesman for the Streets and Sanitation Department. Parents can be charged up to $3,000 to clean up the damage their kids have done, he said.
Posted by Alan Ket on August 25, 2008 at 02:10 AM
