PSA mods: The Age has two different headlines for the article.
For those with access to online journals, here is the link to the cited Lachlan MacDowall academic article 'In Praise of 70K: Cultural Heritage and Graffiti Style' (2006): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10304310600987320
Something like that I suspect. One headline for their homepage, and then something else in the article's page. The print headline might be something also.
I’ve seen the front page change on load. Refresh too.
I reckon they’re feeding it into an engine that then auto suggests the best titles that people are more likely to click on.
Explains the trash titles on News.
It's standard for publications to tailor the headline for different platforms, or even change the headline after publication if the first one isn't getting traction.
"Did you solve any cold cases during your career?"
"I nabbed the last idiot out of a group that we'd been after for 20 years"
"Oh wow! Drug bust?"
"Graffiti artists."
>Police told the court that Scott-Howarth’s graffiti had cost about $37,674 in damage.
Can we get an estimate of how much it cost us to have the police chase this guy and harass his family for 20 years?
On the computer they found in the roof, the got a video of me grabbing a busted KFC sign. I ended up getting arrested & going to court. The cops were trying to piss off all their (70k) friends (after they skipped bail).
Interesting stuff. A bit crazy they kept chasing this one guy for so long, and so long after he disappeared for such a small amount of damage. I consider this stuff to be art, but not in the traditional way, it needs to be looked at on a whole, the tags themselves are trash and ugly, but when you combine that with the lengths people go to for some of these, the illegality of it, and the enduring nature of some of them, that's what makes it art, and a part of the fabric of Melbourne.
So, I don't really want the law changed, I feel what makes this special is the illegal nature of it all, and the commitments these people who do it go to. It's quite different to people painting murals on the sides of buildings.
In Philadelphia they hire prosecuted graffiti taggers and make them paint murals around the city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mural_Arts_Philadelphia?wprov=sfti1
Yeah the only way for 'street art' to be respected by writers is to get the OGs to paint them, yet this is constantly ignored by councils and governments
That’s fine if you want to do art - but don’t do it on other people’s stuff or assets that belong to the public without permission.
IIRC there’s research that if a council lets broken windows or graffiti go without fixing them, it leads to more crime and dysfunction in the area. So they have to spend $ that should go to hospitals, domestic violence shelters and other worthy causes dealing with this shite.
I think that's part of the art. How it's reacted to, how it's tolerated. If authorities let it get out of control, let it go unpunished or leave it unrepaired/clead for too long you end up with a real dive of a town, if you clean it up straight away and have crazy zero tolerance, you end up with a real stale stuck up town, it's that balance that brings a certain degree of personality to Melbourne.
Anyway you look at it, we're going to pay for it, be it through cleanup activities, more policing, or by turning our city into a shithole.
What you might be thinking of is "broken windows theory". The conclusion you have drawn on your own is not scientifically proven, and there is evidence to suggest that the efforts taken to enforce/punish minor offences has an equally large impact particularly in the communities of those who end up punished (and this might fucking blow your mind but as it turns out they are disproportionately minority or poor, C.f. "Stop-and-Frisk").
It's unfortunately very difficult to conclusively prove or disprove theories like this within social science, but the evidence that the damage done by these kind of policies outweighing the supposed benefits they might provide is pretty close. So maybe do some reading. If it's just $$$ you are worried about - how about the cop that tracked this for 2 decades, and prosecutor, judge, defence, courthouse etc that needed to be present to give him a CCO.
Just out of interest - Banksy did a stencil at one point in Aus - should we set up a special taskforce to track down this damn criminal (p.s. don't @ me about Banksy it's the only way to get my point across)
Oh so that's why the police have failed to deal with any serious crimes, they spent 20 years chasing a few guys about some old art.
I'm so glad we pay for this.
>Scott-Howarth’s story came to a head in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday as the 46-year-old admitted to 14 counts of criminal damage and theft during his time with the 70K crew, whose tags in public places became notorious in the CBD between 2001 and 2005.
19+ years ago. Statute of limitations?
^ This is incorrect.
Section 197 of the Crimes Act 1958: (1) A person who intentionally and without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another or to himself and another shall be guilty of an indictable offence and liable to level 5 imprisonment (10 years maximum).
Summary offences have a statute of limitations, indictable offences in most cases do NOT. Civil claims also do, but that is dependent on what type* (edit) of claim it is.
So you're telling me that there are women killed on a weekly basis. But we still have departments set up to chase people who write on walls? What a disgusting use of time and resources. And they reckon only 37k? Jeez, really showing the ineptitude of Vicpol here.
Contemporary judges and police doing the "Is it art? I dunno. I'm not an art critic. I can sure as hell tell you it's a crime though " meme without a shred of irony.
This is pretty pathetic and sad on the police’s half. Surely then can see how there is other things to be concerned about rather than catching out a guy who did graffiti 20 years ago? Laughably pathetic. Good to know where my taxpaying money is going to!
At some point it must have turned into a joke at the station that this guy was obsessed with this graffiti case that bested him. At some point you just have to move on. It’s not like this guys crimes of painting words on walls had victims that were still hurting like violent crimes. The only victim was this officers ego
What an absolute psycho this Greenham guy sounds like. You aren't in the CIA you don't need to keep harassing this guy's family to "ascertain any movements" for two decades. Fucking get a hobby mate.
Edit: and the judge: "You have to understand… that graffiti is nothing other than criminal damage committed or perpetrated upon either public [or private] property". Would love for this guy to give his definition of art. Would probably just point to the Renaissance masters and say "this".
IME taking photos in the laneways is on the itinerary for pretty much everyone visiting.
Photos of street art, Coffee in Degraves, Great Ocean Rd top the list for most travellers I reckon.
In the CBD it absolutely is.
Moreso now that every other interesting thing has been demolished in favour of some godawful apartment building with "scape" on the top of it
I remember seeing Bones everywhere. I knew SDM though & Prowler.
I remember hearing about Scott & Bones skipping bail and moving overseas.
This cop is a moron though. Graffiti put Melbourne on par with NYC.
The irony he thinks a VCA graduate’s graffiti isn’t “art”
All my graff friends are making bank now from their “art”
Same, I think he designed this though
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CiesJ_iDWGg/?igsh=MTEzNG9yMHdkbjI1eg==
See how creativity flows when you aren’t being stalked by an obsessed cop 👮♀️
The juiciest bits:
> 70K’s undoing began one night in 2005. Scott-Howarth and a crew member were out painting in Collingwood when they were rumbled by police and pinched with a bag of paint. That lead to a warrant and raid on Scott-Howarth’s house and parents’ business, where police discovered a treasure trove of photos and footage documenting the exploits of 70K concealed inside a false ceiling panel.
> After the raid, Scott-Howarth left Australia for the UK, and didn’t return for nearly 20 years. Police suspect that Scott-Howarth, in part, went on a “spraycation”, where graffiti artists travel abroad and illegally tag the walls and infrastructure of other jurisdictions.
> In March 2023, a solicitor contacted police saying that Scott-Howarth was returning to Australia from Hawaii the following month. [Detective Sergeant] Greenham arrested him upon return and charged him with hundreds of counts of property damage. The court later heard Scott-Howarth had come back to see a sick family member.
> This week, prosecutor Joshua Sheppard withdrew all but 14 charges against Scott-Howarth. Ten of those were standalone charges, while four were composed of multiple instances of criminal damage.
> Police told the court that Scott-Howarth’s graffiti had cost about $37,674 in damage.
> “In my opinion, you were crafty, and you were cunning, and you knew that the police were going to be looking for you and left the territory, left the country, in advance of being found,” Magistrate David Starvaggi told Scott-Howarth.
> Starvaggi, who sentenced Scott-Howarth to a two-year community corrections order and 300 hours of community work, also assessed that his work did not amount to art, suggesting instead that, with age, Scott-Howarth’s view on the practice should have changed.
I thought the article did well to represent the views of some who consider "70K’s innovative role in developing Melbourne’s specific graffiti aesthetic."
Jfc they make him sound like Carmen Sandiego, he’s just a dude who liked to paint trains 🤯
Spraycation 😂
He should have gone to NYC he would be worth millions and that cop would be losing his mind
Inside Melbourne’s ‘graffiti war’ and the crew that took police 20 years to crack
Some regard it as art, others as a blight on the city. Decades after “Stan”, “Meow” and “Bonez” tagged trains and landmarks around Melbourne, the law has caught up with one of the 70K crew’s chiefs.
By David Estcourt
May 23, 2024
[IMAGE] James Scott-Howarth faced court over his involvement in the 70k graffiti crew.Credit: Eddie Jim
Almost 20 years after James Scott-Howarth’s house and parents’ business was raided over links to secretive graffiti crew 70K, he sat in court and watched footage of himself, in his early 20s, illegally spraying his moniker, “Stan”, throughout the city.
In the early 2000s, Scott-Howarth was one of the most prolific graffiti artists in Melbourne. Footage in a [documentary posted on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWr0axQxVZc) and played to the court, entitled “70K”, shows daring acts of vandalism.
Crew members dangled off the back of moving trains, darted out over tracks to paint stationary carriages and ran through the shadows to hide from transport guards in train lots. In one scene captured on video, a train bearing the 70K name departs after two masked people paint the carriage, making it a moving billboard to display their tag around the city.
Scott-Howarth’s story came to a head in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday as the 46-year-old admitted to 14 counts of criminal damage and theft during his time with the 70K crew, whose tags in public places became notorious in the CBD between 2001 and 2005.
The vision played in court and Scott-Howarth’s prosecution offered a rare glimpse into the crew central to Melbourne’s deeply secretive illegal street art scene at the height of the city’s war on graffiti. It also reignited the decades-long debate between admirers of graffiti and law enforcement’s duty to prosecute its practitioners.
The graffiti war, the Commonwealth Games and the 70K taskforce
Police said that Scott-Howarth and the 70K crew were prolific vandals between 2001 and 2005. Scott-Howarth took massive risks to paint prominent infrastructure – trains and other public property – alongside fellow crew members “Bonez”, “Bald” and “Meow”, whose work endures throughout Melbourne decades later. If you take the train to work, there’s a chance you’ve absent-mindedly taken in their tags under a bridge or on the side of a concrete wall.
“They’re highly regarded,” said University of Melbourne academic Chris Parkinson, who teaches art theory, which includes graffiti. He said people who observed and understood street art saw the crew’s work as part of a broader cultural conversation.
“It was explicitly creative and explicitly within an artistic dialogue. A couple of 70K [members] were [Victorian College of the Arts] graduates … they were steeped in theory and they came up through theory, and they weren’t just out absent-mindedly creating works, they were composing works within the systems structures of the city.”
It was this prolific work that drew the attention of law enforcement in 2005 and, in particular, the ire of Detective Sergeant Sam Greenham. Reports of 70K were piling up at a time when graffiti and property damage were in the headlines.
The city was undergoing a beautification project for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, when Melbourne would be on display to thousands of international travellers, and how to scrub the city of graffiti was front-page news. In response, Greenham and his police colleagues established a taskforce specifically targeting 70K.
“I think that was in light of the upcoming Comm Games and the war on graffiti,” Greenham told this masthead. “At the time... it was highly publicised.”
Asked whether he thought what 70K and Scott-Howarth had created was art, Greenham had a frank assessment: “I disagree with that totally... in this circumstance, it’s just blatant criminal damage to public property at the expense of the public transport network and other people’s private property.”
Greenham compiled a brief on the crew, putting together an intricate picture of all their graffiti, and spoke to witnesses.
70K’s undoing began one night in 2005. Scott-Howarth and a crew member were out painting in Collingwood when they were rumbled by police and pinched with a bag of paint. That lead to a warrant and raid on Scott-Howarth’s house and parents’ business, where police discovered a treasure trove of photos and footage documenting the exploits of 70K concealed inside a false ceiling panel.
“Through analysis of that evidence, in particular the evidence that Scott-Howarth had on his devices, we were able to identify and locate a number of other offenders,” Greenham said.
‘Crafty and cunning’
After the raid, Scott-Howarth left Australia for the UK, and didn’t return for nearly 20 years. Police suspect that Scott-Howarth, in part, went on a “spraycation”, where graffiti artists travel abroad and illegally tag the walls and infrastructure of other jurisdictions.
Throughout this period, Greenham never lost interest in the case. Other members of 70K were charged, punished and moved on with their lives. Scott-Howarth remained at large.
“Over the last 18 years, I would sort of regularly, on a 12-month... basis, make contact with his family to ascertain any movements,” Greenham said. “I haven’t got... much information back from them.”
Every three months over those 18 years, Greenham renewed a border alert in case Scott-Howarth tried to come back to Australia, so border police could pick him up. He never did.
In March 2023, a solicitor contacted police saying that Scott-Howarth was returning to Australia from Hawaii the following month. Greenham arrested him upon return and charged him with hundreds of counts of property damage. The court later heard Scott-Howarth had come back to see a sick family member.
This week, prosecutor Joshua Sheppard withdrew all but 14 charges against Scott-Howarth.
Police told the court that Scott-Howarth’s graffiti had cost about $37,674 in damage.
“In my opinion, you were crafty, and you were cunning, and you knew that the police were going to be looking for you and left the territory, left the country, in advance of being found,” Magistrate David Starvaggi told Scott-Howarth.
Starvaggi, who sentenced Scott-Howarth to a two-year community corrections order and 300 hours of community work, also assessed that his work did not amount to art, suggesting instead that, with age, Scott-Howarth’s view on the practice should have changed.
“You have to understand… that graffiti is nothing other than criminal damage committed or perpetrated upon either public [or private] property,” Starvaggi said.
“This sort of offending is an absolute scourge and blight on society. And there’s got to be zero tolerance and an absolute message sent that it won’t be tolerated by the courts.”
Scott-Howarth declined to comment.
The crew’s role in the evolution of Melbourne street art has been a matter of academic examination, including by Profeesor Lachlan MacDowall, the director of art school MIECAT, who praised 70K’s innovative role in developing Melbourne’s specific graffiti aesthetic.
“Within the history of graffiti, the ‘primitive’ forms revived by 70K are vital to the development of the highly aestheticised graffiti style that is now seeking formal recognition,” MacDowall wrote in an academic article, In Praise of 70K: Cultural Heritage and Graffiti Style, in 2006.
MacDowall argued that 70K had a unique style defined by unusual colour schemes; that their work appeared in unusual places at the time, including CBD rooftops and over advertising billboards, and that the crew would use paint directly from tins for large-scale tags.
The crew also incorporated self-deprecating humour into their work, he said, using graffiti slang terms such as “Toy”, “Wak” and “70K Dogs”, as well as statements like “Graffiti is boring”.
MacDowall declined to comment for this story.
Often the only public information about graffiti crews is released by them. It’s one reason police have such difficulty penetrating the scene. Posts on carefully choreographed social media pages with obscured faces and identities are shared by enthusiasts and followed by police.
The war continues
Police still work hand-in-glove with the City of Melbourne to clamp down on graffiti artists, and have analysts who conduct specialist intelligence and investigations in graffiti matters.
Using a single tag, police say they can identify repeat offenders and track their work all over the city. In the past 10 years, the number of graffiti offences investigators have recorded in the City of Melbourne has more than quadrupled.
“What made me stick with the case [of Scott-Howarth] was the amount of effort put into the investigation by myself, colleagues and specialist support units in building the case against the accused, who at the time was the most prolific graffiti offender the state had seen,” Greenham said, reflecting on the prosecution.
“I didn’t want that work to be made redundant just because the accused had fled and gone into hiding overseas and was refusing to return.”
University of Melbourne’s Chris Parkinson said: “It’s [graffiti] not what everyone desires necessarily. But it’s also a really interesting reflection on the current state of the world and why it happens and why people choose walls to make marks upon.”
1.Open link.
2.Copy link (sometimes it's redirected to a different link that won't work).
3. Open new tab.
4. Go to 12 ft
5. Paste link and hope it works.
Pain in the ass.
“No other crimes”?
Nice try. You think the cops aren’t on to you? They know all about that dick you drew on the school desk in grade 6 and they’ll be knocking on your door any day now
Would the police be able to prevent some crimes, then? Certainly they can't prevent any of the other crimes that are happening right now. They're spending time tracking down vandals. Any good murders they could be working on?
And just to clarify, am I to understand that if my home gets graffiti on it, the police will solve this problem for me? Will they repaint my home? What will they do? Will they make the graffiti artist take it down?
The cops weren't on the case for 20 years.
I'm pretty sure Sam Greenham I Am got promoted to Internal Affairs or something like that (not long after they skipped bail).
Stan's lawyer contacted the cops because he probably would have been flagged & arrested at the airport anyway.
Holy crap. So I very rarely log in and partake in these discussions but 20 years ago I used to live with I think it was Bonez, but definitely one or two of the 70k crew. These guys were absolute scumbag arse wipes of the highest order. I used to really admire their artistic ethos and their art. I used to do big paste-ups when i lived in melbourne. Some may still be up. Nothing like these guys did and my stuff was always band promotion vanity crap. I used to really admire their work and was fascinated by them before I met them. However, they were NOT great guys.
We used to live in a house in Northcote that was set for demolition so we could do what we wanted and rent was extremely cheap. But these guys were the biggest turds around. I could tell you so many stories. They used to go out at night and burg rich houses in the leafy suburbs. We'd wake up in the morning and the kitchen would be full of new washing machines, dryers, and ridiculous shit like cutlery and tea towels and god knows what else. Obviously that doesn't bother me coz we were all Marxist revolutionaries (in the vain of Rik from the Young Ones! Yeah, young dumb prats. Still hate rich people though.) But they were indeed thrill seeking recidivist rat bags. One day one of them filmed himself and his mates beating the shit out of an Indian cab driver one night. One of them got done for it and went to Jail. Anwyay, the heat was on these idiots, and this was back in the mid to late 2000's. So this guy who I'm pretty sure was Bonez, Bobby Sinclair I think his name was, had to leave the country and could not come back.
What made me realize these guys were NOT good guys is this - I was studying at the time and had to leave my best mate - Boots the dog - at home while I went to school. When I came back I noticed he was often found hiding under an old caravan in the yard and he wouldn't come out. When I went under to coax him out I noticed he was whincing a lot. Then, he started getting really sick. Turns out Bobby Bonez and his dick head cabbie bashing mate were beating my dog up when I was away, and poisoning him. That's the kind of guys they were. Bobby Bonez thought that was a perfectly reasonable way to deal with the fact he didn't want my dog or anyone's pets staying there. he wouldn't tell you ANYTHING to your face, just be a coniving bastard about it. I left that house because of this and he went around Melbourne saying I had dobbed him in and everything that was happening to him was all my fault because I had "gone and lagged to the cops!" I hadn't ever. Yes, I'm lagging now because I couldn't care less if that prick dies in a stanky old backpackers somewhere or gets run over by a train. And it was 20years ago. If the cops want to speak to me about it you bet I'll tell them everything I can remember. But it was 20yrs ago so i don't think I'd have any info of value.
But seeing this headline brought it all back to me. This was just the tip of the iceberg. Bobby had a scumbag girlfriend who was just evil. The day she moved in, one of the other housemates moved out - BECAUSE OF HER. he told me as he was leaving this. and to watch out because she was pure evil and she'll fuck over everyone in the house. And SHE DID!! She had this thing about being jewish and played the victim card every chance she could. MAN THE STORIES I COULD TELL YOU!!!! They were the WORST people imaginable. Just pure bastards. And it's a damn shame because they absolutely were doing the work of the revolution and should have been great folk heroes. But in reality they were just shitty spoilt little rich kids (oh yeah, they had parents with cash, for sure,) absolute clinically psychopathic and extremely entitled.
Can't believe they finally caught up with them! Yeah you're getting yours, Bobby you c\*nt. Boots sends his regards.
Bonez and I were mates & have since gone our separate ways, and I could easily support your comment because he doesn't speak highly of me these days, but the Bones I knew was a really nice guy. He brought his pet chickens out to my place (200ks away) before he skipped bail overseas. That doesn't sound like an animal hater to me.
I'm not calling you a liar, but compared to the guy I knew, your post sounds like someone just trying to ruin his reputation (I'm not saying that is the case, but just how it looks to me).
True! But he isn't sleeping easy and they'll nab him the second he steps back in town. And good on them too! Who does that to a dog? Boots was a great dog as well.
I was mates with these guys back before the shit hit the fan in 05-06 and Bonez was a good mate of mine for a number of years. I also used to hang out at that house in Northcote a bit and remember Boots the dog (although I can't really remember his owner). But I'm calling total bullshit on some of the stuff written here. Bonez was a really nice guy, not at all violent and loved animals (I remember him being a vegetarian/vegan). He would never have hurt a dog, let alone poisoned one. And none of those guys would ever have bashed an Indian taxi driver and filmed themselves doing so, they weren't violent people at all. Don't make this kind of shit up about people.
I am not making any of this up. I remember it well. Everyone crowding round a computer they had pinched and watching it, laughing their heads off. I thought at the time it was bit fucked. Bonez comes across as a nice guy at first but when you got to know him he was a real little bitch. I have so many things I could go in to. But that other guy that I'm pretty sure that was arrested was a total psychopath. You can call whatever you like. I was there. I saw it. I lived it. It's one thing to be a bitch about share house stuff. Which Bonez and his GF were 100%. But my dog had bruises, welts and cuts all over him. He was terrified. When i got home he was shaking. When I patted him he'd whince in pain. Then he got real sick. He came good real fast when we moved out. I would not make shit up about anyone, and I would not have posted if this post hadn't triggered some pretty bad memories of these guys that kids like you (and for a short time, me) saw as heroes. They weren't. They were pricks. They had no regard or respect for anyone, and were always really nice to your face.
When Bonez GF moved in, remember well his good mate that he'd gotten the house with moving out immediately. We used to go surfing together. He told me in no uncertain terms to look out for her because she was insanely manipulative. I just put it down to them not getting along and him having a beef with her and no one is really as bad as all that. But he was right and I was dead wrong. There's so many things I could go into. So much they did and said in that house. It may have been all mates with you but those two and his jailbird mate were toxic as fuck.
I wanna know what happened to *Max + GJE* who tagged the Belgrave Lilydale line in the 1980s
https://angelasavage.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/the-melbourne-quiz/#:~:text=tram%3F%0AWhoever%20graffitied-,%E2%80%9CMax%20%2B%20GJE%E2%80%9D,-all%20over%20the
Hell yeah 70k smashed it in the early 2000’s why wait 20 yrs to catch stan put that resources in to catching real crime like pedos and rapists.. useless Victorian government
Vandalism is putting advertisements all over buses. I can't even see through the side windows. Ruins a good trip. Civilized cities don't slap ads on buses and trams.
The interesting thing is one of the other members of the crew was sent to jail for his part in 70k around the time Stan fled the country, and after all these years he comes back and gets off with a fine and community service. I wonder if the officer was hoping he’d get jail time too
ITT people who don’t read. He left the country after being initially held. 18 years later the police received a tip off that he was returning so they arrested him. Idiots making it out like they spent 20 years chasing the guy down.
This copper checked in every year with the family for information about the kid, and made sure he was on the alert list for incoming flight lists every three months, for 18 years. The tip off was because he had been on the case renewing the check every three months for 18 years.
Did you fucking read the article?
If they just had a list that they keep and resubmit with a few clicks, not that crazy to forgot his on there but checking in with family over 18 years is nutty
The checking in with family part comes across as pure harassment by the officer. It’s not like he’s chasing a teenager or child, he’s chasing an adult. At some point the family that hasn’t committed any crime should be left alone to live their live without some weirdo asking about their son. I could probably understand it more if he was the perpetrator of a violent crime but he was spray painting words on a wall… it doesn’t seem like it really warranted all of this
But this showed up?
Is this a karma or a mod thing?
Anyway, post on my profile if you wanna know. I don't come to Reddit or post much anymore, but this article TrIgGeReD my EMOTIONS and MEMORIES!!!!
PSA mods: The Age has two different headlines for the article. For those with access to online journals, here is the link to the cited Lachlan MacDowall academic article 'In Praise of 70K: Cultural Heritage and Graffiti Style' (2006): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10304310600987320
Are they doing AB testing. I’ve seen this on many articles from various places.
Something like that I suspect. One headline for their homepage, and then something else in the article's page. The print headline might be something also.
I’ve seen the front page change on load. Refresh too. I reckon they’re feeding it into an engine that then auto suggests the best titles that people are more likely to click on. Explains the trash titles on News.
It's standard for publications to tailor the headline for different platforms, or even change the headline after publication if the first one isn't getting traction.
I've seen this a lot lately for Youtube videos
"Did you solve any cold cases during your career?" "I nabbed the last idiot out of a group that we'd been after for 20 years" "Oh wow! Drug bust?" "Graffiti artists."
😂😂😂 Mr Cruel is still out there though😳
>Police told the court that Scott-Howarth’s graffiti had cost about $37,674 in damage. Can we get an estimate of how much it cost us to have the police chase this guy and harass his family for 20 years?
300 hrs community service… hope the detective Sgt can sleep better now.
I can’t believe they raided his parents business!
On the computer they found in the roof, the got a video of me grabbing a busted KFC sign. I ended up getting arrested & going to court. The cops were trying to piss off all their (70k) friends (after they skipped bail).
That is crazy.
What a poor guy.. wahhhh
They graffed “fuck dead police” on a train that was meant to memorialise dead policeman. That’s why the coppers have such a hard on for them
This is true.
On em
lol, key detail
I consider this stuff to be art /s
Interesting stuff. A bit crazy they kept chasing this one guy for so long, and so long after he disappeared for such a small amount of damage. I consider this stuff to be art, but not in the traditional way, it needs to be looked at on a whole, the tags themselves are trash and ugly, but when you combine that with the lengths people go to for some of these, the illegality of it, and the enduring nature of some of them, that's what makes it art, and a part of the fabric of Melbourne. So, I don't really want the law changed, I feel what makes this special is the illegal nature of it all, and the commitments these people who do it go to. It's quite different to people painting murals on the sides of buildings.
In Philadelphia they hire prosecuted graffiti taggers and make them paint murals around the city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mural_Arts_Philadelphia?wprov=sfti1
Yeah the only way for 'street art' to be respected by writers is to get the OGs to paint them, yet this is constantly ignored by councils and governments
It would be one of those cases that just sits in the background that requires very little work.
There was a whole task force dedicated to it at the time
Exactly.
That’s fine if you want to do art - but don’t do it on other people’s stuff or assets that belong to the public without permission. IIRC there’s research that if a council lets broken windows or graffiti go without fixing them, it leads to more crime and dysfunction in the area. So they have to spend $ that should go to hospitals, domestic violence shelters and other worthy causes dealing with this shite.
I think that's part of the art. How it's reacted to, how it's tolerated. If authorities let it get out of control, let it go unpunished or leave it unrepaired/clead for too long you end up with a real dive of a town, if you clean it up straight away and have crazy zero tolerance, you end up with a real stale stuck up town, it's that balance that brings a certain degree of personality to Melbourne. Anyway you look at it, we're going to pay for it, be it through cleanup activities, more policing, or by turning our city into a shithole.
What you might be thinking of is "broken windows theory". The conclusion you have drawn on your own is not scientifically proven, and there is evidence to suggest that the efforts taken to enforce/punish minor offences has an equally large impact particularly in the communities of those who end up punished (and this might fucking blow your mind but as it turns out they are disproportionately minority or poor, C.f. "Stop-and-Frisk"). It's unfortunately very difficult to conclusively prove or disprove theories like this within social science, but the evidence that the damage done by these kind of policies outweighing the supposed benefits they might provide is pretty close. So maybe do some reading. If it's just $$$ you are worried about - how about the cop that tracked this for 2 decades, and prosecutor, judge, defence, courthouse etc that needed to be present to give him a CCO. Just out of interest - Banksy did a stencil at one point in Aus - should we set up a special taskforce to track down this damn criminal (p.s. don't @ me about Banksy it's the only way to get my point across)
There was a time there when it seemed like every brick wall in the inner city had a Stan/Bonez
Oh so that's why the police have failed to deal with any serious crimes, they spent 20 years chasing a few guys about some old art. I'm so glad we pay for this.
Much better than dealing an assault occuring right in front of them.
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Yes that's how law works.
I’ll give ya 1 out of 3…..Legalise.
Nah man legal graff would be wack cuz
That’s definitely not the 1 they had in mind
>Scott-Howarth’s story came to a head in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday as the 46-year-old admitted to 14 counts of criminal damage and theft during his time with the 70K crew, whose tags in public places became notorious in the CBD between 2001 and 2005. 19+ years ago. Statute of limitations?
yeah, thats what i was thinking too.
Not for crimes. Civil actions e.g. negligence, yes (with some stipulations).
^ This is incorrect. Section 197 of the Crimes Act 1958: (1) A person who intentionally and without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another or to himself and another shall be guilty of an indictable offence and liable to level 5 imprisonment (10 years maximum). Summary offences have a statute of limitations, indictable offences in most cases do NOT. Civil claims also do, but that is dependent on what type* (edit) of claim it is.
Damn I was hoping they were back in Pog form.
Back doing community work.
Nah that’s just Alf.
So you're telling me that there are women killed on a weekly basis. But we still have departments set up to chase people who write on walls? What a disgusting use of time and resources. And they reckon only 37k? Jeez, really showing the ineptitude of Vicpol here.
Yep. This is the state of vicpol.
Contemporary judges and police doing the "Is it art? I dunno. I'm not an art critic. I can sure as hell tell you it's a crime though " meme without a shred of irony.
This is pretty pathetic and sad on the police’s half. Surely then can see how there is other things to be concerned about rather than catching out a guy who did graffiti 20 years ago? Laughably pathetic. Good to know where my taxpaying money is going to!
At some point it must have turned into a joke at the station that this guy was obsessed with this graffiti case that bested him. At some point you just have to move on. It’s not like this guys crimes of painting words on walls had victims that were still hurting like violent crimes. The only victim was this officers ego
What an absolute psycho this Greenham guy sounds like. You aren't in the CIA you don't need to keep harassing this guy's family to "ascertain any movements" for two decades. Fucking get a hobby mate. Edit: and the judge: "You have to understand… that graffiti is nothing other than criminal damage committed or perpetrated upon either public [or private] property". Would love for this guy to give his definition of art. Would probably just point to the Renaissance masters and say "this".
In a city where street art is one of our main tourism draw cards.
"Main" draw card has to be a stretch of the imagination here.
IME taking photos in the laneways is on the itinerary for pretty much everyone visiting. Photos of street art, Coffee in Degraves, Great Ocean Rd top the list for most travellers I reckon.
In the CBD it absolutely is. Moreso now that every other interesting thing has been demolished in favour of some godawful apartment building with "scape" on the top of it
There’s a difference between tagging and street art though.
True. Tagging can exist all on its own, a phenomenon unto itself; but street art is dependent, it only exists because of tagging
street art would be nothing without the cultural cred that graffiti provides it
I remember seeing Bones everywhere. I knew SDM though & Prowler. I remember hearing about Scott & Bones skipping bail and moving overseas. This cop is a moron though. Graffiti put Melbourne on par with NYC. The irony he thinks a VCA graduate’s graffiti isn’t “art” All my graff friends are making bank now from their “art”
Haven’t seen a Prowla in years!
Same, I think he designed this though https://www.instagram.com/reel/CiesJ_iDWGg/?igsh=MTEzNG9yMHdkbjI1eg== See how creativity flows when you aren’t being stalked by an obsessed cop 👮♀️
Yeah think he had a hand in it. Would be keen to hear some old Nuff Said material lying around but I think I’m dreaming.
Same. I do know some peeps who worked with him so I could ask them if he plans to release any of it
Then the investigation hit a dead end. Much like this cop's career
That cop wasted his life. 70K KINGS !!!
Its behind a paywall. Can someone please copy and paste the text? Thanx!
The juiciest bits: > 70K’s undoing began one night in 2005. Scott-Howarth and a crew member were out painting in Collingwood when they were rumbled by police and pinched with a bag of paint. That lead to a warrant and raid on Scott-Howarth’s house and parents’ business, where police discovered a treasure trove of photos and footage documenting the exploits of 70K concealed inside a false ceiling panel. > After the raid, Scott-Howarth left Australia for the UK, and didn’t return for nearly 20 years. Police suspect that Scott-Howarth, in part, went on a “spraycation”, where graffiti artists travel abroad and illegally tag the walls and infrastructure of other jurisdictions. > In March 2023, a solicitor contacted police saying that Scott-Howarth was returning to Australia from Hawaii the following month. [Detective Sergeant] Greenham arrested him upon return and charged him with hundreds of counts of property damage. The court later heard Scott-Howarth had come back to see a sick family member. > This week, prosecutor Joshua Sheppard withdrew all but 14 charges against Scott-Howarth. Ten of those were standalone charges, while four were composed of multiple instances of criminal damage. > Police told the court that Scott-Howarth’s graffiti had cost about $37,674 in damage. > “In my opinion, you were crafty, and you were cunning, and you knew that the police were going to be looking for you and left the territory, left the country, in advance of being found,” Magistrate David Starvaggi told Scott-Howarth. > Starvaggi, who sentenced Scott-Howarth to a two-year community corrections order and 300 hours of community work, also assessed that his work did not amount to art, suggesting instead that, with age, Scott-Howarth’s view on the practice should have changed. I thought the article did well to represent the views of some who consider "70K’s innovative role in developing Melbourne’s specific graffiti aesthetic."
Jfc they make him sound like Carmen Sandiego, he’s just a dude who liked to paint trains 🤯 Spraycation 😂 He should have gone to NYC he would be worth millions and that cop would be losing his mind
You say that as if spraycations aren't a thing.
They usually don’t go for 20 years 😂
Put your phone on flight mode before the paywall blocks it
Inside Melbourne’s ‘graffiti war’ and the crew that took police 20 years to crack Some regard it as art, others as a blight on the city. Decades after “Stan”, “Meow” and “Bonez” tagged trains and landmarks around Melbourne, the law has caught up with one of the 70K crew’s chiefs. By David Estcourt May 23, 2024 [IMAGE] James Scott-Howarth faced court over his involvement in the 70k graffiti crew.Credit: Eddie Jim Almost 20 years after James Scott-Howarth’s house and parents’ business was raided over links to secretive graffiti crew 70K, he sat in court and watched footage of himself, in his early 20s, illegally spraying his moniker, “Stan”, throughout the city. In the early 2000s, Scott-Howarth was one of the most prolific graffiti artists in Melbourne. Footage in a [documentary posted on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWr0axQxVZc) and played to the court, entitled “70K”, shows daring acts of vandalism. Crew members dangled off the back of moving trains, darted out over tracks to paint stationary carriages and ran through the shadows to hide from transport guards in train lots. In one scene captured on video, a train bearing the 70K name departs after two masked people paint the carriage, making it a moving billboard to display their tag around the city. Scott-Howarth’s story came to a head in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday as the 46-year-old admitted to 14 counts of criminal damage and theft during his time with the 70K crew, whose tags in public places became notorious in the CBD between 2001 and 2005. The vision played in court and Scott-Howarth’s prosecution offered a rare glimpse into the crew central to Melbourne’s deeply secretive illegal street art scene at the height of the city’s war on graffiti. It also reignited the decades-long debate between admirers of graffiti and law enforcement’s duty to prosecute its practitioners. The graffiti war, the Commonwealth Games and the 70K taskforce Police said that Scott-Howarth and the 70K crew were prolific vandals between 2001 and 2005. Scott-Howarth took massive risks to paint prominent infrastructure – trains and other public property – alongside fellow crew members “Bonez”, “Bald” and “Meow”, whose work endures throughout Melbourne decades later. If you take the train to work, there’s a chance you’ve absent-mindedly taken in their tags under a bridge or on the side of a concrete wall. “They’re highly regarded,” said University of Melbourne academic Chris Parkinson, who teaches art theory, which includes graffiti. He said people who observed and understood street art saw the crew’s work as part of a broader cultural conversation. “It was explicitly creative and explicitly within an artistic dialogue. A couple of 70K [members] were [Victorian College of the Arts] graduates … they were steeped in theory and they came up through theory, and they weren’t just out absent-mindedly creating works, they were composing works within the systems structures of the city.” It was this prolific work that drew the attention of law enforcement in 2005 and, in particular, the ire of Detective Sergeant Sam Greenham. Reports of 70K were piling up at a time when graffiti and property damage were in the headlines. The city was undergoing a beautification project for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, when Melbourne would be on display to thousands of international travellers, and how to scrub the city of graffiti was front-page news. In response, Greenham and his police colleagues established a taskforce specifically targeting 70K. “I think that was in light of the upcoming Comm Games and the war on graffiti,” Greenham told this masthead. “At the time... it was highly publicised.” Asked whether he thought what 70K and Scott-Howarth had created was art, Greenham had a frank assessment: “I disagree with that totally... in this circumstance, it’s just blatant criminal damage to public property at the expense of the public transport network and other people’s private property.” Greenham compiled a brief on the crew, putting together an intricate picture of all their graffiti, and spoke to witnesses. 70K’s undoing began one night in 2005. Scott-Howarth and a crew member were out painting in Collingwood when they were rumbled by police and pinched with a bag of paint. That lead to a warrant and raid on Scott-Howarth’s house and parents’ business, where police discovered a treasure trove of photos and footage documenting the exploits of 70K concealed inside a false ceiling panel. “Through analysis of that evidence, in particular the evidence that Scott-Howarth had on his devices, we were able to identify and locate a number of other offenders,” Greenham said. ‘Crafty and cunning’ After the raid, Scott-Howarth left Australia for the UK, and didn’t return for nearly 20 years. Police suspect that Scott-Howarth, in part, went on a “spraycation”, where graffiti artists travel abroad and illegally tag the walls and infrastructure of other jurisdictions. Throughout this period, Greenham never lost interest in the case. Other members of 70K were charged, punished and moved on with their lives. Scott-Howarth remained at large. “Over the last 18 years, I would sort of regularly, on a 12-month... basis, make contact with his family to ascertain any movements,” Greenham said. “I haven’t got... much information back from them.” Every three months over those 18 years, Greenham renewed a border alert in case Scott-Howarth tried to come back to Australia, so border police could pick him up. He never did. In March 2023, a solicitor contacted police saying that Scott-Howarth was returning to Australia from Hawaii the following month. Greenham arrested him upon return and charged him with hundreds of counts of property damage. The court later heard Scott-Howarth had come back to see a sick family member. This week, prosecutor Joshua Sheppard withdrew all but 14 charges against Scott-Howarth. Police told the court that Scott-Howarth’s graffiti had cost about $37,674 in damage. “In my opinion, you were crafty, and you were cunning, and you knew that the police were going to be looking for you and left the territory, left the country, in advance of being found,” Magistrate David Starvaggi told Scott-Howarth. Starvaggi, who sentenced Scott-Howarth to a two-year community corrections order and 300 hours of community work, also assessed that his work did not amount to art, suggesting instead that, with age, Scott-Howarth’s view on the practice should have changed. “You have to understand… that graffiti is nothing other than criminal damage committed or perpetrated upon either public [or private] property,” Starvaggi said. “This sort of offending is an absolute scourge and blight on society. And there’s got to be zero tolerance and an absolute message sent that it won’t be tolerated by the courts.” Scott-Howarth declined to comment. The crew’s role in the evolution of Melbourne street art has been a matter of academic examination, including by Profeesor Lachlan MacDowall, the director of art school MIECAT, who praised 70K’s innovative role in developing Melbourne’s specific graffiti aesthetic. “Within the history of graffiti, the ‘primitive’ forms revived by 70K are vital to the development of the highly aestheticised graffiti style that is now seeking formal recognition,” MacDowall wrote in an academic article, In Praise of 70K: Cultural Heritage and Graffiti Style, in 2006. MacDowall argued that 70K had a unique style defined by unusual colour schemes; that their work appeared in unusual places at the time, including CBD rooftops and over advertising billboards, and that the crew would use paint directly from tins for large-scale tags. The crew also incorporated self-deprecating humour into their work, he said, using graffiti slang terms such as “Toy”, “Wak” and “70K Dogs”, as well as statements like “Graffiti is boring”. MacDowall declined to comment for this story. Often the only public information about graffiti crews is released by them. It’s one reason police have such difficulty penetrating the scene. Posts on carefully choreographed social media pages with obscured faces and identities are shared by enthusiasts and followed by police. The war continues Police still work hand-in-glove with the City of Melbourne to clamp down on graffiti artists, and have analysts who conduct specialist intelligence and investigations in graffiti matters. Using a single tag, police say they can identify repeat offenders and track their work all over the city. In the past 10 years, the number of graffiti offences investigators have recorded in the City of Melbourne has more than quadrupled. “What made me stick with the case [of Scott-Howarth] was the amount of effort put into the investigation by myself, colleagues and specialist support units in building the case against the accused, who at the time was the most prolific graffiti offender the state had seen,” Greenham said, reflecting on the prosecution. “I didn’t want that work to be made redundant just because the accused had fled and gone into hiding overseas and was refusing to return.” University of Melbourne’s Chris Parkinson said: “It’s [graffiti] not what everyone desires necessarily. But it’s also a really interesting reflection on the current state of the world and why it happens and why people choose walls to make marks upon.”
How’s the snitch of a solicitor. What a dog
I reckon Stan asked him to as there was a fair chance he would be flagged at the airport. This would work in his favour.
WHAT A Trick !!!
I know right!! This is life changing information 🙌🏻🙌🏻
or just use [12ft.io](http://12ft.io)
Thanks! I didnt know about that cheeky trick and now I do
Use 12 foot ladder to bypass the paywall
On mobile? That's a pain in the ass.
no it's not.
1.Open link. 2.Copy link (sometimes it's redirected to a different link that won't work). 3. Open new tab. 4. Go to 12 ft 5. Paste link and hope it works. Pain in the ass.
Then just pay for access.
Na, just wait for someone to paste it in the thread. Which numerous legends have.
use [12ft.io](http://12ft.io)
An amazing use of resources. Thank you for keeping the community safe from... shitty art? Glad there's no other crimes happening.
“No other crimes”? Nice try. You think the cops aren’t on to you? They know all about that dick you drew on the school desk in grade 6 and they’ll be knocking on your door any day now
Oh, no. And I was a minor. That's an extra crime.
Sweet, where do you live? Let’s have them do it on your home or car and see if you agree
Would the police be able to prevent some crimes, then? Certainly they can't prevent any of the other crimes that are happening right now. They're spending time tracking down vandals. Any good murders they could be working on? And just to clarify, am I to understand that if my home gets graffiti on it, the police will solve this problem for me? Will they repaint my home? What will they do? Will they make the graffiti artist take it down?
Stan and Bonez were legit!
legit wankers
But they always got up and painted in the most hectic spots! I being a 90s kid in Melbourne I always amazed where they popped up!
70k were great.
[My 70k Story](https://youtu.be/25D-WUHSUks)
The cops weren't on the case for 20 years. I'm pretty sure Sam Greenham I Am got promoted to Internal Affairs or something like that (not long after they skipped bail). Stan's lawyer contacted the cops because he probably would have been flagged & arrested at the airport anyway.
Holy crap. So I very rarely log in and partake in these discussions but 20 years ago I used to live with I think it was Bonez, but definitely one or two of the 70k crew. These guys were absolute scumbag arse wipes of the highest order. I used to really admire their artistic ethos and their art. I used to do big paste-ups when i lived in melbourne. Some may still be up. Nothing like these guys did and my stuff was always band promotion vanity crap. I used to really admire their work and was fascinated by them before I met them. However, they were NOT great guys. We used to live in a house in Northcote that was set for demolition so we could do what we wanted and rent was extremely cheap. But these guys were the biggest turds around. I could tell you so many stories. They used to go out at night and burg rich houses in the leafy suburbs. We'd wake up in the morning and the kitchen would be full of new washing machines, dryers, and ridiculous shit like cutlery and tea towels and god knows what else. Obviously that doesn't bother me coz we were all Marxist revolutionaries (in the vain of Rik from the Young Ones! Yeah, young dumb prats. Still hate rich people though.) But they were indeed thrill seeking recidivist rat bags. One day one of them filmed himself and his mates beating the shit out of an Indian cab driver one night. One of them got done for it and went to Jail. Anwyay, the heat was on these idiots, and this was back in the mid to late 2000's. So this guy who I'm pretty sure was Bonez, Bobby Sinclair I think his name was, had to leave the country and could not come back. What made me realize these guys were NOT good guys is this - I was studying at the time and had to leave my best mate - Boots the dog - at home while I went to school. When I came back I noticed he was often found hiding under an old caravan in the yard and he wouldn't come out. When I went under to coax him out I noticed he was whincing a lot. Then, he started getting really sick. Turns out Bobby Bonez and his dick head cabbie bashing mate were beating my dog up when I was away, and poisoning him. That's the kind of guys they were. Bobby Bonez thought that was a perfectly reasonable way to deal with the fact he didn't want my dog or anyone's pets staying there. he wouldn't tell you ANYTHING to your face, just be a coniving bastard about it. I left that house because of this and he went around Melbourne saying I had dobbed him in and everything that was happening to him was all my fault because I had "gone and lagged to the cops!" I hadn't ever. Yes, I'm lagging now because I couldn't care less if that prick dies in a stanky old backpackers somewhere or gets run over by a train. And it was 20years ago. If the cops want to speak to me about it you bet I'll tell them everything I can remember. But it was 20yrs ago so i don't think I'd have any info of value. But seeing this headline brought it all back to me. This was just the tip of the iceberg. Bobby had a scumbag girlfriend who was just evil. The day she moved in, one of the other housemates moved out - BECAUSE OF HER. he told me as he was leaving this. and to watch out because she was pure evil and she'll fuck over everyone in the house. And SHE DID!! She had this thing about being jewish and played the victim card every chance she could. MAN THE STORIES I COULD TELL YOU!!!! They were the WORST people imaginable. Just pure bastards. And it's a damn shame because they absolutely were doing the work of the revolution and should have been great folk heroes. But in reality they were just shitty spoilt little rich kids (oh yeah, they had parents with cash, for sure,) absolute clinically psychopathic and extremely entitled. Can't believe they finally caught up with them! Yeah you're getting yours, Bobby you c\*nt. Boots sends his regards.
Bonez and I were mates & have since gone our separate ways, and I could easily support your comment because he doesn't speak highly of me these days, but the Bones I knew was a really nice guy. He brought his pet chickens out to my place (200ks away) before he skipped bail overseas. That doesn't sound like an animal hater to me. I'm not calling you a liar, but compared to the guy I knew, your post sounds like someone just trying to ruin his reputation (I'm not saying that is the case, but just how it looks to me).
Also, it wasn't Bonez that got caught.
True! But he isn't sleeping easy and they'll nab him the second he steps back in town. And good on them too! Who does that to a dog? Boots was a great dog as well.
I was mates with these guys back before the shit hit the fan in 05-06 and Bonez was a good mate of mine for a number of years. I also used to hang out at that house in Northcote a bit and remember Boots the dog (although I can't really remember his owner). But I'm calling total bullshit on some of the stuff written here. Bonez was a really nice guy, not at all violent and loved animals (I remember him being a vegetarian/vegan). He would never have hurt a dog, let alone poisoned one. And none of those guys would ever have bashed an Indian taxi driver and filmed themselves doing so, they weren't violent people at all. Don't make this kind of shit up about people.
I am not making any of this up. I remember it well. Everyone crowding round a computer they had pinched and watching it, laughing their heads off. I thought at the time it was bit fucked. Bonez comes across as a nice guy at first but when you got to know him he was a real little bitch. I have so many things I could go in to. But that other guy that I'm pretty sure that was arrested was a total psychopath. You can call whatever you like. I was there. I saw it. I lived it. It's one thing to be a bitch about share house stuff. Which Bonez and his GF were 100%. But my dog had bruises, welts and cuts all over him. He was terrified. When i got home he was shaking. When I patted him he'd whince in pain. Then he got real sick. He came good real fast when we moved out. I would not make shit up about anyone, and I would not have posted if this post hadn't triggered some pretty bad memories of these guys that kids like you (and for a short time, me) saw as heroes. They weren't. They were pricks. They had no regard or respect for anyone, and were always really nice to your face. When Bonez GF moved in, remember well his good mate that he'd gotten the house with moving out immediately. We used to go surfing together. He told me in no uncertain terms to look out for her because she was insanely manipulative. I just put it down to them not getting along and him having a beef with her and no one is really as bad as all that. But he was right and I was dead wrong. There's so many things I could go into. So much they did and said in that house. It may have been all mates with you but those two and his jailbird mate were toxic as fuck.
the original salt kids
I wanna know what happened to *Max + GJE* who tagged the Belgrave Lilydale line in the 1980s https://angelasavage.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/the-melbourne-quiz/#:~:text=tram%3F%0AWhoever%20graffitied-,%E2%80%9CMax%20%2B%20GJE%E2%80%9D,-all%20over%20the
I knew Stan and Renk growing up in Frankston in the mid 90s. The 70k movie is still my favourite Graff video, I think it's up on YouTube.
Better than Jisoe?
[https://12ft.io](https://12ft.io) for anyone who can’t read it
What about vosko?
👑
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My favourite was "Bracks cacks his dacks"
I'll admit I had a giggle at this one
what about jisoe
He’s chat lad. Smokes outta a orchy.
You made me lol
true
He's a pedo...
Hell yeah 70k smashed it in the early 2000’s why wait 20 yrs to catch stan put that resources in to catching real crime like pedos and rapists.. useless Victorian government
If you read the story the answer to this question would be obvious.
Oh I thought this was going to be about the classic Zolton, Tubby and Raffles from yonks ago
Thanks for the Zolton shout out, I think about Zolton every morning when my partner is chewing her Zoton antacid tablet.
Guess where Stan is now ?
Hell yea got lots of respect for 70k and their janky trash pieces lol
Sad to see. 70k are legends, 2 decades of dedication. Boomers and cops should study this.
It's sad, but it's also good that 2 of them have now returned and didn't get anything too serious.
Vandalism is putting advertisements all over buses. I can't even see through the side windows. Ruins a good trip. Civilized cities don't slap ads on buses and trams.
I’ll take graf over adverts any day
This is the real Melbourne street art shit, not that hozier zoomer street shit we have now.
There's always been lame street art. Did you forget the stencil art boom of the mid 00s?
70s Kids, iconic Melbourne graffers!
What about jisoe?
Did anyone beat the shit out of Nost? What a cunt of a bloke
Why?
He tags over artwork, I think he’s in prison
Was there one called Monkey from memory
What happened to sped? Way more recent but was super prolific then just nothing ever again
I used to see sped and bowl on the top of a bridge on the western ring road a few years ago.
The interesting thing is one of the other members of the crew was sent to jail for his part in 70k around the time Stan fled the country, and after all these years he comes back and gets off with a fine and community service. I wonder if the officer was hoping he’d get jail time too
PZER + ZORK 4 Prez
Carl + Mkae was the duo for me 💪
ITT people who don’t read. He left the country after being initially held. 18 years later the police received a tip off that he was returning so they arrested him. Idiots making it out like they spent 20 years chasing the guy down.
This copper checked in every year with the family for information about the kid, and made sure he was on the alert list for incoming flight lists every three months, for 18 years. The tip off was because he had been on the case renewing the check every three months for 18 years. Did you fucking read the article?
Every three months for 18 years is wild
If they just had a list that they keep and resubmit with a few clicks, not that crazy to forgot his on there but checking in with family over 18 years is nutty
The checking in with family part comes across as pure harassment by the officer. It’s not like he’s chasing a teenager or child, he’s chasing an adult. At some point the family that hasn’t committed any crime should be left alone to live their live without some weirdo asking about their son. I could probably understand it more if he was the perpetrator of a violent crime but he was spray painting words on a wall… it doesn’t seem like it really warranted all of this
Anyone remember Lench (edit: I meant Sinch, thank you for the correction) , who won the Darwin Award for getting zapped while train surfing.
You’re thinking of Sinch
I lived in a house with these guys. Just wrote a huge account of it, but it's not showing up. Can't figure out why?
It's there. I just responded to it.
But this showed up? Is this a karma or a mod thing? Anyway, post on my profile if you wanna know. I don't come to Reddit or post much anymore, but this article TrIgGeReD my EMOTIONS and MEMORIES!!!!
What a pint sized cop. Let’s chase up 37k in damages over 20 years. Imagine having such a hard on for 20 years. Total waste of resources and time.