On Monday, December 17th, 23-year-old Eric Michael Hare (aka "Cier"), plead guilty to one count of Intimidating a State's Witness, one count of Destruction of Property (over $2500), one count of Malicious Destruction of Property and one count of Carrying a Weapon. 

The investigation on Hare began in the summer of 2006, when a significant increase of graffiti or "tagging" was reported in downtown Oklahoma City and Wiley Post Airport.  The damage estimates were in the tens of thousands.  Upon conducting an investigation, detectives of the Criminal Intelligence Gang Unit discovered two groups of individuals who were engaged in a "graffiti war."  A group from Oklahoma City, led by Hare, were committing acts of vandalism and destruction of property around the Oklahoma City and Tulsa areas.  These individuals would then advertise their crimes on the internet using websites like MySpace.  A second group from Tulsa would try to out-perform the Oklahoma City group and committed several graffiti crimes in the Tulsa area. 

Several of these graffiti gang members were identified and questioned.  Last June, Hare plead guilty to six misdemeanor counts of Destruction of Property and was already on a suspended sentence when he plead guilty to the above listed charges this week.

The Oklahoma City Police Department takes these types of crimes very seriously.  Graffiti crimes and destruction of property are an eyesore to citizens of this community and demoralizes neighborhoods which are trying to improve themselves. 

The Oklahoma City Police Department also supports proposed legislation, which if passed would reduce the minimum damage required for a felony crime from $2,500 to $1,000 and would allow multiple incidents to be grouped together as one, rather than separate incidents.

Eric Michael Hare will serve two years in prison and five years suspended sentence after his release along with a substantial fine.  Although Hare is the first individual convicted of felony "tagging", the Oklahoma City Police Department is committed to investigating and aiding in the prosecution of others arrested for similar crimes.  The arrest and conviction of Hare for this type of crime was not only a success for the Oklahoma City Police Department but also for the community as a whole.