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Wicker Park, Bucktown, West Town

Graffiti Tagger Pulls Hammer On Man Trying To Stop Him, Police Say

The incident took place at 9:45 p.m. Saturday in the 1400 block of North Milwaukee Avenue during Wicker Park Fest.

Security guards patrol an alley adjacent to Wicker Park Fest on Saturday.
Alisa Hauser/ Block Club Chicago
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WICKER PARK — As bands played on Wicker Park Fest stages, a 20-year-old man was caught defacing the wall of a building with graffiti and used a hammer to threaten a man who tried to stop him, police said.

The incident happened at 9:45 p.m. Saturday in the 1400 block of North Milwaukee Avenue, according to Officer Laura Amezaga, a Chicago police spokeswoman.

A man, 39, told police that he observed another man defacing the wall of a building with graffiti, police said. 

The witness confronted the man and during a verbal dispute, the man who was defacing the building pushed the man who had confronted him and pulled out a hammer, “threatening to hit the victim with it,” Amezaga said. 

According to Amezaga, the victim alerted a security guard working at fest, and the security guard detained the tagger until police arrived.

The man defacing the building wall was identified as Isaias Reyes and taken into policy custody, Amezaga said. The police report did not give a description of where along the block the graffiti was or what the words or colors were. 

Reyes, 20, of the 1100 block of North Washtenaw Avenue, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery, Amezaga said. Reyes was not charged with criminal defacement to property, according to police. 

Reyes was wanted on a previous warrant for an assault, police said. He is currently being held in Cook County Jail and is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday, according to Cook County Sheriff’s office records.