There's a bit of backstory to this one. As you probably already know if you're a regular reader, the city of Portland is a mess. The city is dealing with a crime problem, a drug problem, a homelessness problem. It also seems to have the largest population of violent anarchists of any city on the west coast. 

The situation has gotten so bad in Portland that even the far lefties that populate it have had enough. Oregon's drug legalization is being undone and progressive criminal justice reform is on its way out. Last month Multnomah County's progressive DA got voted out and replaced with a new DA who had vowed to be tougher on crime.

Despite these changes, one of the many ongoing problems the city is still dealing with is graffiti. Portland is a "vandal's paradise" according to a recent documentary report published on You Tube. 

As it happens, I watched this report a few weeks ago when it came out, though I never posted it here on Hot Air. One of the big reveals in the 36 minute report comes when the interviewer is met by a graffiti artist wearing a hood and a mask and taken to see his stash of supplies. In a small room there were something like 2,000 cans of spray paint plus all the other supplies a tagger might want.

Police were alerted to the existence of the report and began looking into it. Somehow they managed to identify the identity of the tagger and connect him to a specific property. Yesterday they served a search warrant and located the huge cache of spray paint and supplies he showed off in the interview.

During the investigation, police report they identified Fischel and the home where he stashes his abundant supply of spray paint - or as Fischel called it in the docuseries, “every graffiti writer’s fantasy.”

Investigators say Fischel is responsible for GIMER (Graffiti Is Me Escaping Reality) tags across the city and distributing supplies to graffiti vandals.

During the search warrant, police confiscated more than 1,500 cans of spray paint totaling more than $10,000.

Fischel wasn't home at the time of the search but police say they know where he is and they will be filing charges against him. Given the extent of his vandalism, he seems like a great candidate for the new DA to make an example of by throwing the book at him in court.

The documentary makers, whose reports are posted under the YouTube channel name Chaostown, put up a statement yesterday saying the search wasn't their fault.

CHAOSTOWN has not been questioned by law enforcement.

We may look a little different than the news reporters you’re used to, but we hold ourselves to journalistic standards. 

We do not reveal sources, to anyone.

More soon.

Lots of angry reactions to that suggesting this was their fault. According to the Oregonian, police did find enough in the video to identify Fischel.

A YouTube docuseries called “CHAOSTOWN,” in which a Portland tagger bragged of having a huge stash of spray paint, led police to his Centennial neighborhood home...

 Although Fischel is concealed in the video, the officers gathered enough information to tie the video to him and his home, according to police.

Here's the interview with Fischel. I've watched this twice and I'm not sure how they ID'd him. The show does blur out his hand tattoos in several shots but there's one where you can still sort of see the shape of one of those tattoos. Was that enough?  BTW, if you stick with this to the end, they interview another graffiti writer who says he sees tagging as an anti-capitalist act. I guess that's true in some cases, but a lot of what gets covered in graffiti is public property. Does that make it an anti-communist act? Below the interview is a local news report on the search.