FOUR YOUTHS ARRESTED IN $10,000 GRAFFITI SPREE NEW VISTA MIDDLE SCHOOL ONE OF TARGETS, DEPUTIES SAY.

Byline: Daily News

LANCASTER -- Four teenage boys were arrested Monday on suspicion of doing more than $10,000 damage in graffiti vandalism over the past three weeks with spray paint stolen from a construction site, Antelope Valley sheriff's deputies said.

The boys ``tagged'' at least 30 walls -- painted gang slogans and nicknames on them -- in the Antelope Valley since Oct. 1, deputies said. They said targets included New Vista Middle School late Thursday or early Friday.

``They like to think they're a gang,'' sheriff's Sgt. Darryl Brown said about the four boys. ``From talking to them, I think that they were leading up to that.''

But he said deputies believe that the four were arrested while still a tagging crew that painted graffiti on walls, buildings, signs and curbs for notoriety, rather than street-gang members for whom graffiti is a sideline to more serious crime.

He said the boys stole the spray paint before the graffiti spree started. Nine spray cans were found at one boy's home, officials said.

Arrested were two 13-year-old boys who attend New Vista and two 15-year-old boys who attend Antelope Valley High School, said Brown, who heads the Lancaster sheriff's station's school-safety unit.

All four were released to their parents pending court hearings because none had been arrested before, he said.

Deputy Kelly Simon of the Lancaster sheriff's station's crime-prevention unit said parents should pay attention to their children's activities and to what's written in their rooms and on school books and bags.

Gang-style writing on their bedroom walls or on belongings usually signifies gang membership or affiliation, Kelly said.

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(color) Nine cans of spray paint were seized from the home of one of four boys arrested Monday on suspicion of graffiti vandalism.