FOUR TEENS ARRESTED IN GRAFFITI SPREE.

Byline: Greg Botonis Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Four teenagers have been arrested in connection with a string of graffiti ``taggings'' over the past two months that did $19,000 damage at Palmdale, Quartz Hill and Lancaster high schools.

Investigators say they are looking at more arrests in the near future.

``We're trying to get out the message that if you decided to go out and vandalize these schools you will be caught, you will be prosecuted and you will be forced to pay restitution,'' said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department investigator Steve Gross. ``We solve 80 (percent) to 90 percent of these cases.''

Three 17-year-old boys are students at Palmdale High School. The fourth is an 18-year-old Lancaster High School student. Sheriff's deputies released no names.

The arrests came after deputies and detectives assigned to Antelope Valley Union High School District campuses worked with school security staffers to identify the ``tagging crew,'' officials said.

Deputies said students reported rumors that the ``crew'' was using the nighttime vandalism as a form of initiation and had vowed to spray graffiti on every high school in the Antelope Valley.

The vandalism was initially and wrongfully believed by students and school staffers to be the work of street gangs. While street gangs are involved in drug dealing and other serious crimes, tagging crews concentrate on creating graffiti.

``Usually the people that do the most damage are tagging crews and not gang members,'' Gross said. ``It's usually fly-by-night crews.''

Anyone with information on any of the school vandalisms or who knows the identity of a tagging crew member is asked to call Gross at the Lancaster sheriff's station at [phone], Ext. 4013.