By Carolyn Schuk

 

Santa Clara police have arrested a Cupertino man in the string of paint bombings that has plagued the city since early 2006.

 

Shortly after 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning, police arrested Coyer James King, 54, of Cupertino after Detective Pablo Lopez observed King putting a container of paint in the road near Lafayette and Santa Clara Streets. A search warrant executed on King's Cupertino residence uncovered additional evidence related to the case, according to Lt. Mike Sellars of the SCPD.

 

King was arraigned on Monday and charged with 15 felony vandalism counts. He is being held in Santa Clara County jail on $100,000 bail. A plea hearing is scheduled on July 24.

 

Over the last two years there have been about 300 paint bomb incidents in Santa Clara, according to Director of Street and Automotive Services, Rick Mauck. This year the pace of the vandalism stepped up to about six to ten episodes a week, following a consistent pattern.

 

The hits typically occur early in the morning in the old quad and Santa Clara University neighborhoods on main thoroughfares like Lafayette St. The perpetrator leaves a plastic container of paint in the roadway, where cars will drive over it, spraying the paint.

 

Cleanup costs for each incident range from $500 to $5,000, depending on the extent of the work needed. "If nothing has to be repainted it's about $500," says Mauck. "If it [paint] covers the crosswalks and traffic directions, we estimate [clean up costs are] over $4,000. Sometimes paint has sprayed over medians and several lanes of traffic."

 

The police department has been actively investigating the incidents since they started. On one occasion, a city employee saw a man in a red sedan tossing the paint out of the drivers' side window, but was only able to describe the perpetrator as a white male in a red car.

 

"These were acts of cowardly vandalism," said Santa Clara Police Chief Stephen Lodge in a July 22 statement. "As is true with a lot of graffiti cases, it really became a quality of life issue.  He defaced a large number of areas in our town and it became a priority for our department to identify the suspect and to stop him.  I am very proud of the efforts of our officers and detectives in this case.  We recognized that this was an area of significant concern to our residents and took action."

 

Police ask that anyone with information about any of the paint bombing incidents, or who may have been a victim of them, call the department's hotline at (408) 615-4826. The suspect, Coyer James King, is a white male with brown hair, green eyes, 5' 10" and 160 pounds. The vehicle in the July 17 incident is a 1984 Red Ford Tempo with California plates, 1JPJ561.

 

Carolyn Schuk can be reached at cschuk@earthlink.net.