BAKERSFIELD — An 18-year-old Bakersfield man was arrested on Wednesday morning after a two-year serial tagging spree. Uriel Valdez was booked into the Kern County Jail for 10 counts of felony vandalism.
According to the Bakersfield Police Department, Valdez’s arrest concluded a year-long investigation into 448 graffiti offenses throughout the city of Bakersfield, which occurred between September 18, 2012 and March 2, 2015.
Investigators from the BPD’s Graffiti Habitual Offender Suppression Team had identified Valdez as the tagger behind the graffiti, which has been estimated to have cost the taxpayers of Bakersfield more than $53,000 to remove.
On March 4, at around 11:30 a.m. officers served a search warrant at a residence where Valdez was purportedly living, in the 3800 block of McCourry Street in Bakersfield, where he was taken into custody without incident.
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KERO: BPD: Man arrested for 448 graffiti offenses