Nicole Ferguson is the owner of Mountain Refined, a furniture store in downtown Heber City. She said surveillance cameras caught two people tagging her building Friday, June 2.
"You can hear them shaking their cans of spray paint," she said. "And you can see both of them running back and forth as they tag several spots on the building. And then one of them about 12:20 a.m. gets a phone call from his mom. And he says 'Oh no, we gotta go. My mom's calling.'"
Ferguson said the graffiti rattled her employees and customers when the store opened the next morning.
"We had some visitors come to our store and ask us if this was a bad part of town because they noticed the graffiti," she said. "They were nervous and asked if it was OK to be out at night because it makes our town look scary."
Heber City Police Sgt. Joshua Weishar said about 30 incidents have been reported in the past month. And he said he suspects juveniles are likely behind many of them.
"It started about when school got out," he said. "We tend to see more of that when kids get out of school and they have more of the summertime things to do."
"You can see both of them running back and forth as they tag several spots on the building. And then one of them about 12:20 a.m. gets a phone call from his mom. And he says 'Oh no, we gotta go. My mom's calling.'"Nicole Ferguson, Heber City business owner
Weishar said the graffiti doesn’t have the hallmarks of gang activity or renegade artists.
"It just more seems like an opportunity tagging," he said. "We've had some paint go missing from some of the construction sites. So we’re thinking some of that material gets left out and kids get it and start walking around spray painting as they walk through town."
He said the incidents tend to happen in low traffic areas that aren’t well-lit. Ferguson said there are no streetlights near her business but it was a highly visible area.
"I was actually quite shocked because when you see the surveillance, you can see cars driving by at night," she said. "Because they pull out of Smith's right there, the lights are shining right on it."
Ferguson said she was disappointed no one called the police to report the crime.
"That would have maybe stopped it and re-directed these young men into a different activity or a different direction," she said.
But Ferguson said she was also very touched by an outpouring of community support after it happened. The Wasatch High football team even offered to paint over the graffiti as a service project.
"It makes a business owner feel appreciated and loved in the community," she said. "So that has been quite special, something that probably those teenagers didn't expect to have happen."
To help prevent this kind of crime, Weishar said officers are available to go to homes or businesses for a free security assessment. Heber City residents interested in setting up a visit can call the police station at (435) 657-7961.
Officially, Heber City Police don’t have any suspects yet. But Weishar said they have, in his words, “some idea of who it is.”
