Daredevil LA tagger "Buket" of YouTube fame gets nearly 4 years in jail.

Los Angeles tagger "Buket," aka, Cyrus Yazdani, was today sentenced to 3 years and 8 months in California state prison. He gained online fame when he tagged a sign over an LA freeway in broad daylight, and vandalized a bus.

Yazdani became something of an Internet sensation when he plastered his "Buket" bomb 20 feet above the busy Hollywood Freeway -- vandalism that was captured on videotape and posted with a rap soundtrack on YouTube and numerous tagger-related blogs.

Yazdani must also pay $117,196 in restitution fines.

Daredevil street artiste or reckless egomaniacal douchetard? Not sure. Either way, I feel badly for the guy. He's going to do that kind of prison time, for a nonviolent crime? Seems harsh. Maybe part of the logic was that he could have caused accidents in the freeway incident, leading to injury or death. But you can actually kill someone, under some circumstances, and do less time. Hash it out in the comments.

More: Los Angeles Times (today), LAist (from May, 2009).

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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angryhippo

I think I am going to start a new business- repainting after tagging. If it costs 60k for the city of LA to repaint over graffiti I can do it for half and still make a bundle.
angryhippo

He did this while on probation from the previous vandalism conviction? AND videotapes it and puts it up on YouTube? The courts would look at that as a huge “F You!” and respond accordingly. I don’t feel bad for him at all- he poked the judicial bear in the cage.
Anonymous

YEARS PEOPLE YEARS.

It never ceases to amaze me the level of ignorance some people can have. The same jerk judge who has a hard time doing anything for more than an hour or waiting 3 minutes for his food will gladly send a man away for YEARS at a whim or on a bad day….. Or the same commenter on here cant stand to wait through 2 minutes of commercials, or a long line at the drive through, but are perfectly willing to say, ” well he did it before, maybe he learn from 4 YEARS in jail.”
Whats wrong with you people?

We went horribly wrong in this country when they stopped making punishments reasonable.

Lets put this into perspective shall we?
1. if he lives to be the ripe old age of 80 years old then he will have lost 5% of his life to jail for this incident. Lets say cancer runs in his family and his life expectancy is 40, well then he loses 10% of his life.
2. it took him minutes to do, NOBODY DIED, nor were there any accidents. Its past time to stop saying “what if” when sentencing someone. Charge the man for the crime he committed and make the punishment reasonable instead of charging the man for the crime he “could have” caused and make the punishment fit the crime or maybe even help the problem instead of making the punishment as high as possible.

For instance.
Man is sentenced to repairing the damage he caused by using his own physical labor and approximately 10 times the amount of time he took to commit the crime. So make him work for a few days very hard on other people outdoor painting crimes, then either give him a few months in jail for being an idiot.

This SYSTEM IS CLEARLY BROKEN, A BLIND MAN CAN SEE THAT. The prisons are private corporations and they make money when they are at capacity, hmm i wonder if judges get a nudge and a wink every time a new prison has just been built…………. When a hospital gets a new MRI machine those things are EXPENSIVE, suddenly all the doctors will be recommending MRI’s to pay for it. When a vehicle or public safety issue is brought up the cheapest route greatly outweighs the most intelligent route. A doctor wants one thing, money. To get that he will suggest you take multiple drugs for the rest of your life. Their job is to PRETEND like they care and they actually take specific classes calling it “bedside manner”. The government and large corporations run the news, you will not see things that upset those in control. They have printed more money in America than there are people in the world. It seems the half naked homeless man holding the sign saying “The End is Near” might not be the crazy one in current times.

So sit there on your high horse and agree to his sentence, but before you do, ask yourself if you would want to be judged as harshly.
Vengefultacos

While 4 years for graffiti seems harsh, remember that during the act of his spraypainting, he wasn’t just risking his own life, but the life of everyone on the highway below him. If he fell, he’d quite possibly have taken an innocent bystander (or several) with him (either by going through their windshields, or dropping onto the roadway and causing them to swerve to avoid hitting him).

You want to risk your life to put your little mark on something? OK… You want to risk others lives as well? I have no problem with you going to PMITA prison…
theawesomerobot

That’s more than a little excessive considering it was a nonviolent crime. 3-6 months? sure. Nearly 4 years?! that’s crazy.

Though I agree, a mighty douchetard.
techsoldaten

I worry about the message this sends to other grafitti artists, that the penalties associated with their work exceed those of otherwise more costly crimes. People may decide that the means of creative expression in their urban settings is best determined based on the potential jail time, and start running dog fighting clubs running down pedestrians with SUVs, shooting themselves with unlicensed weapons in nightclubs, or otherwise acting like the criminal sports stars who get less time in the cooler for carrying out more violent offenses.

I mean, shit, what happens when these people start becoming performance artists and protesting the status quo?

M
Bevatron Repairman

Lots of graffiti is very, very cool, but a 150 pound fellow dropping onto a car at 65mph could get several people killed. I think four years is excessive. I’d love to see a guy like this put some of his time in the big house over to teaching art or whatever as a community service with house arrest for an appropriate amount of jail (six months?), but I can get a lot less than four years for vehicular homicide.
AirPillo

I think the government would be hard pressed to justify equating the damages incurred with the value of 4 years of a person’s life. They’d be hard pressed to justify even claiming the amount of damages they do, honestly.

These crimes should be punished with fines, not jail time.
Ugly Canuck

He had “priors”, eh? That does change things as to the sentence, IMO.

But the “distraction of the driving public” argument as justification for a harsh sentence kinda stinks, especially if there’s no evidence of actual harm caused…what about billboards, then?
Or the men who work on them?

Yet, four years still seems harsh for a non-violent offense.

I guess this sentence is about the deterrence of others, from doing similar acts.
And this guy just happened to get caught…I guess many don’t, eh? So he pays for the sins of others, too, in a way.

PS I hate – just hate – the defacement of public property: but jails cost a lot, eh? They ought to make him work cleaning up grafitti…
aldasin

Douchetard. But his sentence should be a lot of community service, cleaning up blighted areas.
Piers W

If you get permission it’s not graffiti. It’s a mural.

I agree with #27 that if you live in a shitty area you get to live with usually dull and derivative examples of ‘self expression’ in the form of graffiti.

You also have to put up with equally bad public murals commissioned and painted by well meaning people who don’t live there.

If you live where they live, no graffiti and no fucking awful murals either.
techsoldaten

And I don’t think he’s a douchetard, the same way I think people who make art with Elmers and popcycle sticks are artists. It’s all about expression, and part of his art is the manner in which it is created. I put him right up there with Damien Hirst, who really just finds dead things, sticks them in curious poses, stores them in formaldehyde and displays them.

M
Beelzebuddy

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after
committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly ‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, “Kid, whad’ya get?” I said, “I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage.” He said, “What were you arrested for, kid?” And I said, “Spray painting.” And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, “And creating a nuisance.” And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the
bench.
Yamara

Glenn Beck would have done less time if he had raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.
Anonymous

Buket is on another level that the majority of the readers here won’t understand. He belongs to a subculture that roots him on and promotes his actions. The crazier the spot, the more ups and respect you have. Jail time sucks, but being immortal in the graff world is sometimes worth jail time, or even death. If there was anyone in danger on that interstate it was himself, falling and being run over dozens of times and having his guts splattered on the pavement. I’m sure his TKO fam is more than proud.

-D
hungryjoe

This kind of tagging is more sport than art. Similar sports include mailbox smashing and shooting street signs.

Lots of people are saying, “nothing happened; it’s not a big deal.” This is true. But it’s not like Buket is done. His next big event will have to be even riskier in order to maintain current levels of notoriety in his little community. Will the next big tag endanger anyone? Is this guy’s art so valuable to us that we allow him to risk the lives of others?

We commuters are just a bunch of drones, anyway, right? Our lives have little value in the grand scheme of things…

I’m pretty happy with his sentence.
MrMonkey

I’m definitely not a fan of tagging, so I’m in the “egomaniacal douchetard” camp, but four years? How can we call that Justice, especially when Glen Beck hasn’t served any jail time for raping and murdering a young girl in 1990?
Anonymous

Wow almost a hundred comments for Buket. First let me say that Buket is one of the most intelligent graffiti writers I have ever met. He is prolific at his art form in a way that most of you will never be able to understand. The amount of time he has been given is a tradegy. Stop real crime. “In the halls of justice the only justice is in the halls.”
ADavies

He should have also used a safety rope and harness. That would have kept drivers out of danger.

And, yeah, not sure if artistic judgment should be part of the sentencing, but… lame tag.

Overall though, I’d still say the sentence was too harsh.
Rindan

Look, the guy is clearly an ass. I do think that he needs a good smack upside the head. That said, sending him to jail for 4 years is a waste of tax payer money. Fine him for the cost of cleaning that crap up and make him go do a few hundred hours of community service (something ironic like tag clean up would be nice, but the love of tax payer money, don’t send him to jail.

Don’t get me wrong, my initial response is to smack someone like this upside the head of jail time, if for no other reason than to keep him from breeding for a few years, but it really isn’t worth it. The tax payer picks up the tab, and you dramatically increase his chances of hooking up with real criminals. Make him pay in a way that doesn’t cause jails to fill up or the tax payer to suffers. Fines and community service is the answer for dumb asses like this guy.
slywy

My vote: “Not bright.”
Anonymous

> I really feel badly for the guy, though — that he’s going to do that kind of prison time, for a nonviolent crime?

Why the double standard here? If he was a crooked banker who cheated a widow out of $117K (a nonviolent crime) there would a call from the BB community to string him up. How is that in any way different from causing $117K worth of damage?

I agree that we might be better served as a society to use that precious resource of a prison cell for a violent offender, but I have not one whit of sympathy for the guy. Frankly, I find it strange that when a vandal picks up a spraycan instead of a tossing a brick through a window, they somehow seem to be equated with artists in some circles. There has been the occasional street artist who rises to those levels, but this guy (and the vast majority of taggers) do not.
teapot

Stevezilla – the word stinking doesn’t just allude to odour, it can also allude to a state of being rotten as is demonstrated through your one-sided point of view.

I have never said this work by our old friend “Buket” is art, I am merely pointing out that all forms of artistic practice begin somewhere. Also, having spent many years studying visual art at university, I can quite comfortably say that I probably more qualified than you at defining and aticulating the boundaries of art. What, may I ask, did you study?

You are obviously just a disgruntled property owner who is tired of “dem darn kids”. Please tell me how a massive punishment and fine for this guy is going to change your situation in any way. As I said before, do you think the little punks on the corner are reading the newspaper? Harsh punishments for people like “Buket” might make you feel warm and fuzzy, but they do nothing to solve the problem – and surely that is the end goal.

I await your opinionated response.
Kid Geezer

Tagging isn’t graffiti, much less aerosol art. I’d love to see more of these asocial shits spend some time in jail, although 4 years might (only might) be a bit much.
pAULbOWEN

Angry Hippo is dead right – if you take the royal piss out of the courts, the courts will express their displeasure. Also, his tag is shit – not street art, just messing the place up, and in a way that put other’s lives at risk. He was asking to go down, and down he’s gone, though I agree for far too long.

Is it true about Glenn Beck raping and murdering a girl in 1990?
J France

Hoodlum? No… @58. That’s the daft, knee-jerk, douchetard attitude that thinks sending a non-violent offender to an Institute for The Violent and Criminally Gifted is a good idea.

Maybe a big fine will act as a genuine deterrent, if you wanna get shitty bout it – give him Home Detention, for God’s sake. Twelfty-billion hours of community service. This is of no benefit to the guy, society or anyone but conservitards who like to tut their tongues and point to incarceration rates as some sort of proof of being toughez on teh crimez.

Bullshit.
robcat2075

One of the most depressing things about L.A. when I visit is the omnipresent graffiti. There’s no sane argument to justify it.

I would prefer he be sentenced to four years of cleaning off graffiti by day and home confinement by night. But you know he wouldn’t follow the plan. He’d be sneaking out and putting up as much crap as he cleaned off.

The real tell is his absurd rap-gansta-wannabe affectations at the beginning. He doesn’t have one original creative thought in his head and he shouldn’t be celebrated as if he does.

I too have heard people ask if Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990. Is it true?
Ugly Canuck

I dunno about Beck raping and murdering, but i have heard that he uses scurrilous and underhanded debating tactics…
Stevezilla

Aww… too FREAKING bad!! If he fell onto the freeway and killed himself, you’d all be crying crocodile tears. If he fell into a minivan with a single mom with sleeping kids, you’d really be crying. Seriously, screw all of these stupid tagtards, and that goes double for all of you faux hipster-types who encourage these morons in what they do. Calling it ‘outsider art’ and trying to legitimize it as they destroy someone else’s property makes you look so phony. I honestly don’t give a damn about this guy’s ‘expression’ as an ‘artist’. You people don’t have to live in the shit taggers make. You don’t have to live in the fear and knowledge that when you see tags, you may be in the wrong neigborhood. or even worse, YOUR neigborhood just became the new territory. Do you ride the Blue Line into your day job and see the jacked up buildings and crap on your way? You ‘beautiful people’ go on about how edgy and wonderful it is, then you go home to your Beverly Hills gated loft with 24 hour security. If you think their art is so f’ing wonderful, LET THEM PAINT YOUR HOUSE! If you want to further them as artists, give them an art school scholarship, buy them some canvases, put their stuff up in your gallery, GIVE THEM A JOB, do something besides showing me your sniveling faux concern over a poor ‘artist’ who was stupid enough to post vids of himself doing crimes on YouTube.

This is way harder than I’ve gone to any response on bOING bOING, and I apologize if I’ve tread on anyone’s feelings, but seriously, this is the real world, not Jet Set Radio.
mgfarrelly

When you’re on probation doing something like this is extremely poor judgement.

But four years? Nonsense. Restitution, community service (perhaps working with kids and young adults on legal murals and art projects?) plus serving out whatever term he was on probation for since he violated the terms.

Warehousing people for petty crimes does not serve the public interest.
samu

That kind of sentence does seem obscene at first, but given the danger to others and the repeat offences â€¦ I don’t know.

I’d have more sympathy if the graffiti was less feeble, maybe. “Expression”? He must have more to say than THAT, surely? Dogs express as much when they piss on trees.
Anonymous

we all know that all of the people driving wouldn’t have seen him anyway ’cause they’re too busy texting.

what if he fell? what if, what if, what if

he didn’t
Wibbly

Definitely a douchetard, but the US really needs to have a good think about what values are promoted by your absurd ‘justice’ system.

Seriously, do you even know why you are punishing this guy?

1. Specific deterrence (so he won’t do it again)
2. General deterrence (so no other douchetard will do this again)
3. Just desserts (because he deserves punishment)
4. Incarceration (he can’t do it again _because_ he’s in gaol/jail)
5. Rehabilitation (he won’t be motivated to do it again)
and there are other good reasons too …

But, the point is, that in the US, no-one seems to have thought about why people are being punished.

Putting someone in gaol/jail for this sort of thing is daft.
samu

@MGFarrelly

“community service (perhaps working with kids and young adults on legal murals and art projects?)”

A nice idea, but the video offers no evidence that he has any applicable skills.
Stevezilla

As to my previous post, I will admit that throwing a ‘You guys are elitist snobs’ vibe in earlier that I shouldn’t have. I reacted to the piece emotionally, and I am a longtime reader who should’ve known better. I apologize to anyone I offended in that area. But…

Teapot@60

“Stinking and unbalanced?” Wow, your internet connection is so good that conveys scent? No, thank >you< for your offensive response. Everyone else who has responded with various opposing opinions has been reasonable, even despite that thing about Glenn Beck possibly raping and murdering that girl, or so I heard.

You don't know me from Adam, and if any ignorance is being illustrated here it is your own.
You "challenge" me? It's not my mission in life or my daily internet activity to be an art critic for taggers or murals, nor do I accept 'challenges' from random internet people. Get over yourself.

"Everyone starts from somewhere"? Do they need to write on the side of my home to discover their muse? As I said before, if you think it's so great, let them write their pieces on your walls. There was an apartment in my building that got tagged up by an 'artist' occupant. After they were evicted, were you there to help clean up the mess? I was. Did your rent go up? Mine did.

I NEVER said all tags are related to gangs and territories but NONE of the stuff I encounter are some 'dramatic art piece' of some poor urban artist, just some weasel that wants to put their banger name up. But if you get an 18th St. tag on a stop sign in your neighborhood, what are YOU going to do? Call the cops? They'll tell you to move.

As for legitimate murals, there are several in my neighborhood that are well done art pieces. but if the guys who did them started out by tagging up someone else's property, well, then they're jerkasses. If they've made reparations for past misdeeds, then good on them.

However, the argument over whether graffiti is art and >which< graffiti is art isn’t going to be solved on this bulletin board, or in an art appreciation class or in a court room. This is a case about an idiot tagger with a rap sheet and on probation, who videotaped himself doing something illegal that could have ended much worse than it did. This is California, and he’s NOT going to do all of the 4 years he got hit for. If you think what he did wasn’t so bad, I’m sure he’d love for you to kick in some funds on that $117,196 plus lawyer fees he’s got to pay. Break out your check books.
Anonymous

i cost the city 100k to clean the paint off a wall? i would have done it for half that.
HeruRaHa

NOOO THEY BE JAILIN THE BUKET!

(sorry, couldn’t help it)
Stevezilla

(whoops, cut off…)
However, the argument over whether graffiti is art and >which< graffiti is art isn’t going to be solved on this bulletin board, or in an art appreciation class or in a court room. This is a case about an idiot tagger with a rap sheet and on probation, who videotaped himself doing something illegal that could have ended much worse than it did. This is California, and he’s not going to do all of the 4 years he got hit for. If you think what he did wasn’t so bad, I’m sure he’d love for you to kick in some funds on that $117,196 plus lawyer fees he’s got to pay. Break out your check books.
batu b

Hah! He spelled “Bucket” wrong! What a jerk!
Anonymous

I really cannot begin to understand people who are against graffiti.

I can, however, understand there being some kind of penalty for this stunt. But to put this in perspective, here in NYC, 3.5 years is the minimum sentence for actually killing someone while drunk driving. Not just potentially distracting some drivers, which might have hypothetically led to a car crash.

See for example this story from yesterday, in which a drunk driver who killed two people was sentenced to a minimum of 3.5 years:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/drunk_driver_sentenced_to_prison_Mv5y5Yiw1vLLHksdMhIsuL
Stevezilla

(sorry BBers, I see what happened.)

However, the argument over whether graffiti is art and which graffiti is art isn’t going to be solved on this bulletin board, or in an art appreciation class or in a court room. This is a case about an idiot tagger with a rap sheet and on probation, who videotaped himself doing something illegal that could have ended much worse than it did. This is California, and he’s not going to do all of the 4 years he got hit for. If you think what he did wasn’t so bad, I’m sure he’d love for you to kick in some funds on that $117,196 plus lawyer fees he’s got to pay. Break out your check books.
Anonymous

I’m fine with sending taggers to jail for the degradation of public property so long as we start with Madison Avenue. Buket’s tag is visually offensive, sure, but no more so than any number of giant glowing double arches.
mypalmike

Buket’s work is misunderstood. His use of simple colors and rough lines contrasts with, yet reinforces, the stark lines of the highway overpass in its brutal greenness. The subject of his painting appears to be his name, yet when we consider it more thoroughly, we realize that he is signing his work as any traditional artist does. The creation and the signature are one. The bridge, the landscape, the city are, both literally and figuratively, owned by the public, and by extension, Buket himself. The risks he takes, both artistic and personal, are seen by all of us, both directly as in the video, and indirectly through the implied possibility of a fatal fall by the mere presence of the piece. The viewer goes under his work, in contrast to how we normally expect to be in front of a painting. By doing so, he pokes fun at his own mortality, his work hovering like a dead angel overhead.

Wait, Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990?
Anonymous

Graffiti is an addiction. I need help. I can’t stop. =(
misterjuju

The bombs and tags thrown up by graffiti “artists” like Buket is NOT the same as gang graffiti. To people like Stevezilla who automatically think graffiti=GANgSVIOLEnCEzOMGBLACKpEOPLEnGuNS! there is nothing to be scared about when driving thru neighborhoods with Buket-style tags… When you see MS13 or CRIPS or shit like that, that’s gang graffiti. Because, you know, those are the names of gangs. It pisses me off when people confuse the two.
However, I don’t agree with graffiti “art” or tags being painted up where its not welcome. Case in point: a few years ago, one of my friends brought over his aspiring “graffito-tagger” girlfriend who, when she went outside my apartment for a smoke, got out one of those phallus-sized black markers and wrote her stupid graffitotag on the wall outside my home. I didn’t see it til after they left. She’s not welcome near my house anymore. grrrr…fukn stupid graff kids…grumble
Oh but 4 years, NOOOOO, that’s too extreme for graffiti. Maybe 4 months. Plus 5 years probation with community service, and he’s not allowed near my house either.
gruben

Yeah, $60k in damage? I saw a worker painting over graffiti in the LA River the other day. He basically took a roller with some gray paint to the cement wall and covered up a 10 foot long tag in less than 10 mins.
Anonymous

ACTUALLY, I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THIS GUY WAS A DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION WORKER BEAUTIFYING THE UNDERPASS OR A CLEVER, ANTI-TERRORISM COVER TAGGER!?

THE PENALTY IS WAY TOO HARSH AND WHAT TRAFFIC ARE YOU REFERRING TOO RUSH TRAFFIC!? I DON’T SEE ALOT OF VEHICLE’S IN THIS PIC? MAY’BE I’M BLIND?

STARDUSTER
Christopher Murrie

@24 Hey, Stevezilla- did you read any of the comments? I can appreciate your stance, but I don’t think anyone is presenting the stance you are railing against.

Also, someone should ask Glenn Beck when he stopped raping and murdering that girl in 1990.
Christopher Murrie

oops. I meant @27. Where the hell is the edit option?
jdaverin

I dunno, the “distraction to motorists” thing is a pretty weak argument. He’s no more distracting than construction or those ridiculous lights they put on the lane from 110N->5 now.

Plus this is L.A., I’m sure everyone was way too busy on their phones to notice something in the real world.
Anonymous

this is nothing compared to the PIXAÃ‡ÃƒO from Sao Paulo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtlRZdLGi3I
Anonymous

Can you believe all of the drivers who were momentarily distracted from their text messaging? Unbelievable!
Daemon

“Daredevil street artiste or reckless egomaniacal douchetard?”

There’s no shortage of overlap between the two categories.
Snig

Scooter Libby outed a covert CIA agent and got 30 months, which was commuted. His fine of 250k was likely much less of a burden to someone of his resources than 117k was to Buket. Jaywalking also carries a risk to drivers, but fines for it are usually under 100k. Driving and talking on the cell phone is frequently seen, but rarely ticketed, though the risk is comparable to driving drunk. I don’t care about the art aspect. If you despise him, why should he get free room and board for 4 years?
Anonymous

You make a shit bridge with no design element the fuck it – put art on it.

You never done anything stupid – I did. Plenty.

I grew out of it and became responsible and have a respectable job. I would not have if some society would not have let me.

Over active judge whose ego needs deflating !
AnoniMouse

E.V. sounds like he’s chewing on gravel.
Scott

Yep. Egomaniacal douchetard.
Anonymous

A cursory glance at the so-called “corrections” system shows that it’s just a money farm. Otherwise, going to prison for nearly any non-violent crime or a crime that doesn’t pose a VERY clear risk to health and livelihood of others is completely insane. The US and Britain are becoming police states more every day :(
Anonymous

What people don’t understand is that this kid is a bomber. It’s all about doing wild shit like this for him and the art aspect is mostly secondary.

Jail time offers absolutely no deterrence to graffiti bombers because its what makes the whole thing thrilling to begin with.
neurolux

It’s pronounced “Bouquet”!
Anonymous

graffiti is an addiction, what he did after already being in jail is insanity.
he needs help not punishment.
Anonymous

@all could-have-caused-accident commenters:
If someone climbed there for 30 minutes to just, well, hang (and do nothing) or if someone kept running across the freeway for a couple of minutes, the risks of an accident would be the same. However, you wouldn’t get four years for that even if you waved a gun.

IMHO bombing and tagging is crap, proper graffiti or nothing.
Dan

Considering I’ve had to repaint most of my garage two times this year, so far, 4 years for a tagger seems a little light.
rossangeles

That’s not Buket introducing the vid. That’s Evidence from Dilated Peoples. If that is who you are referencing with the sober comment.
Anonymous

Despicable… The only ones who deserve Jail time are the prosecutors and judges. If he “Defaced” public property, well isn’t he part of society so therefore he’s only decorating “His” property? Now, if he cuts down “Stop” signs, covers up “Danger: Blasting” signs, then it’s a danger. But otherwise he’s trying to pretty up his city…

And, for the publicity and time frame, he did a good job. If he just scrawled letters, maybe that would be “Art Crime”. IMHO, the next one should put up a camera with a time/date stamp overnight a few nights. Study the traffic patterns to find “Da Fuzz”‘s usual routes. On average you could have a lag time of 1/2 hour late night. Then have everything prepared with screens and a helper and just make a really good “Bode” level work:-)

Then, obviously post the declaration of the “Crime” through a means not directly traceable to you…

And, btw, kids throwing rocks at cars over bridges usually get little or no time. There were even some freeway snipers that got let out (lifetime probation) after less time, I think…
Anonymous

he should be required to work in a flower shop for 4 years, make ”bukets’ all day long.

prison time for this makes me wanna puke.
theres got to be other alternatives. we incarcerate for the hell of it. why?
Mitch

Graffiti isn’t a minor crime when it involves
destruction of property and requires cleanup
actions that use toxic chemicals. When it is done
to private property the property owner must spend
time and money that he might otherwise spend on
something better to remove it, sometimes more
than once.

The punishment really needs to have some
deterrent value because there is perceived status
gained from tagging in highly visible locations.

I say a fine of two weeks wages plus restitution for
the first offense, 30 days in jail and 6 months house arrest for the second offense, and 90 days
in jail plus a year of house arrest for the third
arrest. The jail time should be with work release
privileges, of course.

The clown who tagged above the highway should have
an extra 30 days thrown in for the risk to
people’s lives and also the risk of a ‘gawker’s
block’ causing a traffic jam that would waste
people’s time.
Anonymous

When people put graffiti in my neighborhood, I feel violated. It is a kind of crime that lowers the quality of living for everyone that has to look at it, and it is not easy to remove.

I can understand some kid doing it once, and getting caught, getting a slap on the wrist, and becoming more mature for the experience.

SOmeone like this is totally different, they exist to degrade other people’s lives. Four years is lenient in my opinion. I would like to see him given 100 lashes.
Anonymous

Guys who beat their wives get out in less time.
KWillets

The judge is simply expressing himself through the medium of imprisonment. Who are we to say that this is not art?
chungdoh

I feel bad.
Anonymous

I’m sorry, but I drive that fwy on occasion and the number of ways this idiot douchtard could have hurt or killed any number of innocent people are too numerous to count. He could have distracted a driver enough to cause a multi-car pile up, he could have fallen, been hit, caused a multi-car pile up. Someone could have seen him, assumed he was suicidal, called the police and diverted resources away from protecting and serving those who really need it. The bottom line is he’s a repeat offender, he put other peoples lives at risk, and he deserves the punishment he got. The fact that he didn’t hurt anyone doesn’t justify the fact that he very likely could have.
GlenBlank

It’s not art, it’s advertising. (And ugly advertising, at that.)

He’s a repeat offender, already on probation for the same crime.

And if you think “sentenced to four years” means “will serve four years”, you’re not paying attention to what’s going on in California prisons.

“A judge in December sentenced Yazdani to 10 months in county jail, 256 hours of graffiti removal and five years’ formal probation after he pleaded guilty to nearly three dozen counts of felony vandalism. He was released from jail based on credit for time served but faced the prospect of three years in state prison if he violated the terms of his sentence.”

–LA Times, 5/22/2009

So, they already tried the “light jail sentence, early release, probation, community service painting over grafitti” thing.

Didn’t work.

So, what, they should try the same thing again, hope it’ll get better results this time?

Sorry, no. He already had that chance. He blew it. No sympathy here.
Anonymous

“He could have fallen and killed others”.

OK. When do the 4 years jail sentences start for texting in a car, and obviously we need an immediate 8 year sentence for DUI. Don’t seem to remember Mel Gibson being locked up for that.
Anonymous

@ people concerned with the public saftey aspect.

Had he climbed over the side, not been suicidal and not done any graffiti, would you punish him similarly? there are many (very legal) ways to threaten the lives of the people around you, most just haven’t the showmanship aspect of this one.

I understand the knee-jerk reaction to someone doing something so shocking but I feel that graffiti has become a distractive pet peeve for many governing forces. What is so wrong with people painting under bridges and along aqueducts? personal property is not the responsibility of government officials and they dont have any hand in its clean up.
I understand the fear associated with gang tags as well but this is just a means to an end and stopping it would have little to no effect on gang violence. In fact an argument could be made that with no way to determine territorial lines that more violence would occur due to accidental trespassing.

Graffiti like this has been going on for decades and shows no signs of slowing. If citizens want tags off their private property the only (possible) solution is to allow it on certain public spaces . Perhaps (and this is admittedly rather silly) you could even be licensed and granted permission to tag certain areas based on how/what you paint. Basically, a streamlined mural permit application process.
alicebt

The sentence is harsh, but he is still a Duchetard. Actually he shouldn’t be in jail with us paying the bill, he should be doing community service and actually doing something constructive.
Anonymous

I’d rather see a nice softdrink ad or a man in his underwear instead. Better yet how about a drug to sell me that keeps me a good little citizen.
Itsumishi

Bah! 4 years is an insane amount of time for any vandalism offence.

Also the damages, jesus christ it seems that anyone prosecuting for damages caused by graffiti like to exagerate the costs of cleaning it up by about 500%

I remember a while ago when Renz from Melbourne was prosecuted they tried to claim he had caused about a hundred thousand worth of damage to a building that was about to be demolished. He’d tagged all the windows from the inside and done a few bombs where he could get out. How that somehow would have made it more difficult to demolish I’m still trying to figure out.
Anonymous

I am for jury nullification in every criminal case until Bush and Cheney are brought to justice.
madzack

this punishment is way to harsh. 4 years for some graffiti crazy. much like this kid in texas who got 8 years!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKXLIdhAkfE
Dillenger69

Nooo, they be stealin’ my bucket!
Spikeles

Reckless egomaniacal douchetard? Yes
Fine? Acceptable
Jailtime? Possibly Excessive

- “Hey, i’m in for murdering a family, what are you in for?”
- “I spraypainted a sign and vandalized a bus”
- “Damn, that’s hard core”

But.. then again.. he does seem to have done 10 months jailtime in the past and seems to have had no remorse nor attempted to curb his “appetite” for vandalizing public(and private) property. Perhaps 4 years jailtime will finally let the idea sink in that nobody wants to see his chicken scrawl on their buses.

Of course, Walrus is going to be sad now :(
teapot

Did he fall? No. Did he cause death? No. This is the bottom line.

Anyone who drives a motor vehicle holds in their hand a set of keys to a killing machine. Cars kill way more people on a daily dasis than stunts like this. Cars have the potential to cause far more damage and destruction (after all, fear of causing a CAR CRASH is the supposed motive behind the harsh penalty).

Whats that? Did someone say the difference is that in this case potential danger is caused by a selfish and counterproductive act? Sounds to me like the same reason for about half of the traffic being on our roads (i.e. so many pointless trips, no car-pooling, general laziness of people who refuse to walk/ride a bike).

I say slap him with a fine which would cover the costs of the following punishment: stop the traffic late one night and make him climb up there and clean it off, then erect a massive billboard in the same location with a his picture and a bit of text saying “My name is Cyrus Yazdani and I’m a _________________” (fill in with your choice of defamatory insult). This billboard can then be the place where the next offender gets his/her picture posted.

Obviously the system isn’t working as graf is still on an exponential rise. Public shame is better than locking someone away for years whilst the public quickly forgets about the crime, the punishment and everything to do with the whole story. Do many taggers read newspapers or care about whats in the media? I’d say not…. The street is their medium and so we need to take making an example of them to the street where other potential offenders will see the unpleasant fate of getting caught doing graf.

Prison cell slap-and-tickle is not a fair punishment for this.
Anonymous

Fine and Time Do Not Fit the Crime
gobo

Nobody should be jailed for graffiti, but “Buket” arguably put motorists’ lives in danger by tagging where and when he did. One false step and he’d be in the middle of the interstate. For that? Yeah, he should head to jail. Not for 4 years, granted.
Random_Tangent_

Writing your handle in bubble letters over the freeway is definitely not street art. Doing the same thing to a bus, also doesn’t really qualify.

Put him in county lockup for a few months for that kind of thing (especially for putting it on YouTube, sheesh). Years in the state pen isn’t doing anyone anywhere any good.

Also, can we call bullshit on the claim of painting 60 grand worth of damage on the LA ‘River’. Why don’t we just declare it an at-your-own-risk public mural space, it basically is anyway.
efalk

Guy’s obviously a problem with recidivism, but jail time? Not appropriate.

Instead, I would have given him 2000 hours community service cleaning graffiti, plus a gps tracking bracelet for the next 5 years.

Any time new graffiti appears anywhere in the city, correlate it to his location. If there’s a match, send him to clean it up and it doesn’t count towards his 2000 hours.
Ugly Canuck

One’s freedom of expression ends, apparently, where the property of others begins.

Talk about suffering for your art!
Anonymous

I can never read graffiti. It always amazes me that someone would risk their life to write something in an illegible font. If it were me, I’d be using Verdana or something.
Anonymous

For anyone interested in learning more about Buket please check out the blog link below. Found here are writings from Buket himself while serving his time in prison. It will give you such an insight to the man behind all the hype and make you understand his day to day life in prison.

http://buketsstory.blogspot.com/
Anonymous

But if we didn’t send nonviolent criminals to jail for many years, California might become fiscally solvent. We can’t have that.
yannish

can of spray paint: $4
Camcorder:$350

Expression on the hoodlums face at sentencing: Priceless!
Big Ed Dunkel

Take time to learn local graffiti laws in jail, son.
Christopher Murrie

Graffiti itself may be a relatively minor crime, but doing that over a busy freeway during the day is irresponsible. No doubt he was a huge distraction to the drivers below. His presence alone could have caused an accident as people’s attentions are drawn away from driving. If he had fallen, not only would he have gotten hurt, but would have very likely caused a serious accident.

If he was tagging a brick wall, the sentence would have been too harsh- he was committing a worse crime than just vandalism.
Takuan

I would be interested in examining this judge.
Trent Hawkins

Who needs CCTVs when criminals will gladly upload videos of their crimes on YouTube for all to see?
teapot

@#27 – thanks for your stinking and unbalanced opinion. What makes you think that BB readers live in 24 hour secuirty gated houses in Beverly Hills? Also what makes you think that all tags are related to gangs and “territory”? Way to clearly illustrate your ignorance. Taggers are most def the lowest form of street artist – but I challenge you to find me one writer who started out painting amazing murals or pieces from the beginning. Everyone starts somewhere.

Furthermore, BB posts from times past have clearly illustrated the challenges faced by legitimate graf artists who have sourced legal walls for their work only to have local councils paint over their hard work. And it’s not like these cases are isolated.

http://boingboing.net/2009/05/16/chicago-alderman-van.html

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/08/banksy-mural-acciden.html
mortis

That’s wick-wick-whack, son. Kid’s a dumbass, granted, but the time doesn’t fit the crime. Maybe Mark Ecko will help him out…