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There has been a recent trend on Fanshawe College's main campus in the past few weeks that is costing students thousands of dollars.

According to Security Supervisor Bob Earle, a couple of graffiti taggers have created about $2,500 worth of damage by spray painting their tags — a stylized signature — all over campus. The majority of the vandalism occurred between September 7 and September 22, mainly in male washrooms in H building, M building and A building, though they have been spotted in a few other locations.

"What the student population needs to understand is that clean up and repair of that sort of thing costs thousands of dollars, and that's money out of their pocket that could be spent on more beneficial things," said Earle.

These tags are clearly identifiable, as the taggers aren't using pens or markers like most washroom vandals. "These are quite significant. They're not typical washroom wall scribblings; they involve spray paint, they're significant in terms of their size and dimensions," said Earle.

According to Earle, Campus Security Services has been working closely with the London Police in order to catch the taggers. "Typically these sorts of things don't happen exclusively on campus — they have tags elsewhere — so certainly the London Police are investigating similar occurrences with similar tags and they're working along with us to try to identify the person that's responsible."

Earle suspects that these specific tags can be attributed to two people, given the style of the tags themselves. "Some of them look quite similar, so they're potentially using multiple tags, but the overall appearance looks to be the same person or the same couple of people, and they may be working in tandem with one another." Though there may be multiple people involved in the tagging, Earle said they don't appear to be gang related.

If these taggers are caught, they could be facing some serious consequences from the London Police as well as the college. Since the damage so far has cost the college a couple thousand dollars, this is a serious offence in terms of mischief creating property damage, which, according to Earle, involves criminal charges. "(The charges) can range from fines to potential jail time as a consequence, so it is quite significant." If it turns out that the taggers are students, they could face consequences up to and including expulsion from the college.

"I wanted to make sure the campus was aware of it so they could be watchful for this sort of thing and perhaps help us with this investigation," said Earle.

If you have any information about the taggers, contact Campus Security Services in D1027, by email at security@fanshawec.ca or by phone at 519-452-4400.