FRED RADTKE SPEAKS OUT: City Business, Richard A. Webster 4/25/08 “Gray Ghost Launches Offensive at Cafe”

On April 19, a customer walked into Mojo Coffee house on Magazine Street and told employee Alicia Adams there was a strange man outside painting the side of the building.  Adams recognized him immediately. It was Fred Radtke, the self-appointed scourge of graffiti.  Radtke is the founder of Operation Clean Sweep, a non-profit dedicated to the eradication of graffiti.   He covers up the sprayed-painted vandalism using buckets of gray paint, thus earning himself the infamous moniker, the “Gray Ghost.”  Adams, 24, said she asked Radtke to “please don’t paint on our private property.”  His response had left her shaken and afraid for her safety.  Adams said Radtke verbally attacked her with the most offensive of obscenities, letting her know that he could care less what she thought and was going to do whatever he wanted.  “He was screaming at me from across the street and in front of my customers while I’m at work trying to handle this in a professional manner”.  After his tirade, Radtke got into his van and pulled away.  Adams said she called the police, reported the incident, gave them Radtke’s license plate number and asked them to come by the café’, but the police never arrived.  “Other people saw what was happening and were scared of him and worried about my safety because of his completely over-the-top, unwarranted reaction,” Adams said.

That was in the article…first I want to say, like always, Richard Webster, again plays to the mob….  Our company is Operation Clean Sweep, and my name is Fred Radtke.  Mr. Webster refers to me as the Gray Ghost in the title.   As you read this article, it sounds like a tabloid newspaper, then City Business magazine.

Here is what happened that day: 

I drove up across the street with two volunteers and park the truck.  I told the two volunteers not to go near that coffee shop, even though there was graffiti on a telephone on the corner.  The reason I told them was the people inside hassle us all the time, where we actually had New Orleans police escort us in that area (this is documented with NOPD).  I then started to cross the street to paint the graffiti off the telephone pole.  Five people came out before I reached the telephone pole yelling and screaming, “Don’t touch our building, we are going to call police.” I said, “Do what you have to do,” and proceeded to paint out the graffiti on the telephone pole.  While doing so these people continued to yell and scream. From that point, without saying a word, I returned to the truck. This all took no longer then 60 seconds.  The two volunteers witnessed the whole thing.  Plus, this is the important point:  I would never, and I mean never, would curse at any people, particularly at a group of people who maybe filming me or recording me on their cell phones.  The other point is I do not know who is in this coffee shop with baseball bats, or whatever, waiting for me to do something like that.  Mr. Webster uses the title,” Gray Ghost Launches Offensive at Cafe”.  Gee, Mr. Webster, your title sounds like I was involved in a “Desert Storm Operation”.  If in Mr. Webster’s first paragraph “a customer saw a strange man outside painting the side of the building”, then why did miss Adams say,” he was screaming at me across the street”?  If I was across the street, coming to paint the telephone pole,

Why did someone say, I was painting the building first, when I was across the street?  Why would Miss Adams say,” please don’t paint on our private property.” she would have said, why did you paint on our private property?”

In the article, Mr. Webster wrote I said “I sweared to God,” I never cursed at her.  Mr. Webster, I don’t have to “swear to God,” to prove to some staff writer, that I cursed at a woman.  I did not do it, and I don’t do that.

 In the article, Mr. Webster said business owners along Magazine St. have long complained that Radtke, who is not a city employee, has painted on their buildings without their permission. But when told of their concerns, the police do not do anything.  My question Mr. Webster, is, who are these people? Name names, if we make a mistake, we will correct it.  If they don’t want us on their property, call police to get our telephone number…and tell us. It isn’t that hard.  But every article you write, you keep saying businesses complain to the police, but I don’t get businesses complaining to us.

But City Council at large, Jacquelyn Bechtel Clarkson, said the city has never authorized Operation Clean Sweep. “We want graffiti removed but we want it authorized and controlled as to when, where and how he can do it,” Clarkson said. “I know the city would never give Radtke authorization to do any of what he is doing, including going on someone’s private property and he certainly doesn’t have the right to be abusive to anybody, not in this city.”

All due respect to Councilwoman at large Clarkson, Operation Clean Sweep has been taking graffiti out for over 10 yrs. You have been in office those ten years, and not once did you ask what we are doing, set an appointment up, ask about an authorized comprehensive graffiti abatement program, that we have, ask us about businesses complaining, please contact them, etc.

The city has not spent one dollar from tax payers’ money on Operation Clean Sweep. The city never had a graffiti program in place, and still doesn’t today. When we first started, it took us two years to catch up to the graffiti,

Pre-Katrina, if we had a complaint, we would correct it. Only after Katrina and 5-7 thousand abandon buildings, we get people complaining to everybody, except to us. Why is this? Maybe it is because there are not that many complaints, and the people complaining are the ones that want graffiti, disorder and to put fear in the neighborhoods.  And after 10 years of free service to the community, painting out over 10,000 tags, saving the police over 4,000 phone calls by creating the graffiti hotline, and winning national awards, citations from 2 presidents, and saving the city hundreds of thousand of dollars, at least Councilwoman at large Clarkson, what you could have done was at least gave us the courtesy to call us to get our side of the story, before quoting City Business, and receiving second hand information. Right or wrong, you could have made your own opinion, then gave it.

The real problem is that the city is not doing anything to stop graffiti, and that has created the need for a person like Fred Radtke, said Robert Wolf, past President of the Coliseum Square Neighborhood Association.  “The situation we’re running into across the city is that we don’t have any real leadership at the top. So a lot of our neighborhoods have to do everything on their own,” Wolf said.  ”Fred Radtke is a classic example of city government failure, and he’s stepping in to fill the void. But Radtke is an imperfect solution to a large problem, and businesses and property owners on Magazine Street have complained about his tactics,” Wolf said.  Mr. Wolf, all due respect, as former president of the Coliseum Square Neighborhood Association, Pre-Katrina, Operation Clean Sweep worked with over 40 neighborhood associations, but I never was asked to attend a meeting, questioned about what we were doing, and had no letters, phone calls nor other communication with you…but you criticize us.  Did you ever think that your neighborhood association is the most important part of what we do?  Why? Because you never asked.

When you say “I believe his intentions are all but the best, and I don’t think he’s looking to do anything negative”, Wolf said, “but I think the problem for him is that it has become personal. And once it crossed that line, I think he’s had a hard time keeping it in balance and making the right choices in some cases.”

Mr. Wolf, we all have experienced the lack of leadership in government, and we always will. If you are that concerned about your neighborhood, as you say, your intentions are for the best, then maybe working on issues you see to improve the neighborhood could be brought to light by both of us. As for stepping over the line and making it personal, I don’t make any of what I do personal, unless myself, my family, or my volunteers are threatened with harm.

And once again, “businesses and property owners on Magazine Street have complained,” Mr. Wolf, who complained?  And if so, did they contact us, did they contact you to contact us?  Who?

In the article, when Demian Estevez, owner of Mojo, called Radtke to ask him about the confrontation with Adams, he said, Radtke was just as abusive to him.”he was yelling and screaming.” He said that he never touched our building and that the “little bitch” was lying”.

But when Estevez arrived at Mojo on April 19^th,  just an hour after Radtke left, he said there was a large splotch of gray paint on the side of the building that had never been there before.  “I could still smell the primer paint” Estevez said.   No one has sprayed graffiti on his building for years because the graffiti artists have respected his property.  But now that Radtke has smeared gray paint on his building, all bets are off.

First, Mr. Estevez, when you called the graffiti hotline, because I don’t know who’s at the other end, whether we are being recorded, or someone who wants help, we never, and I mean never, for 10 years, representing the community, curse or be abusive, so sir, I have to call you a liar.  Second, being accused of something, and you telling me I should go into some neighborhood with crime, because these are little boys out their doing graffiti is just your opinion. The little boys in your neighborhood have done tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage, and are still doing it.

The statement “when you arrived just an hour later, you could still smell the primer, and said, there was a large splotch of gray paint on the side of the building.  Any painter or professional would tell you water base paint dries in 5 minutes, so it’s unlikely you could smell anything.

Second, I want the readers out there to pick up on these words, like “splotch”,”smear”, “self-appointed scourge of graffiti,” “infamous”, “gray ghost”, “crusade”, “the sting of Radtke”, “venomous”, these words are used over and over in articles written to belittle myself, and Operation Clean Sweep.  Thirdly, let’s talk about your building.  When myself, and two volunteers stopped across the street, I crossed over and painted out a telephone pole. No gray was on your building. The next day, I returned and saw a square gray about 12″x 12″ on your front building. I took pictures of the gray on your building, and the gray on the telephone pole. The gray on your building was a different color then on the telephone pole.  How can that be…if I painted supposedly your building?  Fourthly, we wrote to City Business “Letters to the Editor”,

Saying the same thing, but even challenging City Business to bring a camera person over to the building, and we would use graffiti remover to take the gray off.  If there was graffiti underneath, we would take full responsibly, if there was nothing underneath, then we were set up, and someone is lying. City Business not only did not put our rebuttal in the “Letters to the Editor”, or responded to us, they did have other people respond, and wrote and extension of the article 4/25/09 & 4/28/09 blasting us.  A month earlier they wrote “Gray Ghost Graffiti Solution has problems”. Yea, the problem is you don’t print our side of the story, seven stories were written post-Katrina, and six of the stories Mr. Webster plays to the mob, by using the headline “Gray Ghost”.

In the article, Mr. Estevez said “anything that is gray becomes a hot spot for graffiti artists.

Mr. Estevez, it took Operation Clean Sweep two years to catch up to graffiti when we first started. There was no gray then, if you travel up Magazine Street today, it is covered with graffiti, including all around your business. By the way, if graffiti artists respected your property, then why am I being accused of painting on your property?

In the article, Miss Adams related she was shocked that I spoke to her in that manner, maybe because I did not speak to you in that manner, she also said she heard I was a former marine, knew what I looked like, when I first showed up, customer said there was a strange man painting the side of the building, the self-appointed scourge of graffiti, a very scary man, and he seems completely unstable, these are your words, not mine. Then why didn’t you call the police, or the owner?  He showed up an hour later, it wasn’t that important enough for him to return immediately, or call police.  If I’m so dangerous, why did you go outside?  It sounds like you were alone, but you weren’t. You had a group of people yelling at me while I was painting out the telephone pole.  If I painted your wall, why would I go back and get another roller to paint the pole?

So it would be a different color gray?  Possibly, but then why would I offer City Business to bring a camera person there to remove the gray, to see what was underneath?   Good question.

In the article, on the same Saturday that Adams had her run-in with Radtke, one block down the street the owners of Eye Candy Tattoo felt the sting of the Gray Ghost.  Donn Davis was inside with a customer when his cleaning lady, who had just left, called to tell him that Radtke was outside the shop.  By the time Davis went outside, the Ghost was gone, but he left behind his calling card, a large splotch of gray paint on one of the store’s front posts.  “Someone had written something in crayon, and I had wiped part of it off,” Davis said.  “I was going to have our cleaning girl clean off the rest, but then this guy comes and paints over it. He didn’t come inside to ask or anything.  Davis called the police, and two officers came by to take a report.

“They said if I saw him to call and they’d ticket him for painting on private property, but that’s all they can do.” Davis said.  Across the street from Eye Candy, Radtke painted over graffiti on the windows of an abandon building and that has caused additional problems, Davis said.

“I pointed it out to the police who came by. You can’t see in there real good, so now people go hang out in there. I’ve seen hookers taking guys in there, and guys going in to smoke rock. They have a nice little enclave there because the windows are gray. At some point something has to change. Radtke has been trying the same thing since the 90’s and it’s just not working, but he keeps at it and that’s the definition of insanity.”

Ok, let me understand this, we are reading the “City Business Newspaper”, I think.  I keep getting back to this tabloid mentality. Anyway, first question does Mr. Davis own the property where he has his Tattoo Parlor, or was that a store, like in the article, where you can buy candy and get a tattoo at the same time. We document everything we do, and we have many pictures on this building that is not just a little crayon mark. “By the time we went outside, “the ghost was going. “We disappeared into thin air, Mr. Davis, don’t you know we are invisible?”  So, again, let me understand this, Mr. Davis, calls police for painting on a property he doesn’t own, and for painting out a crayon. But Mr. Davis relates to police that we made it easier for hookers, and drug addicts to do their business across the street, in an abandon building, because Mr. Davis saw hookers and drug addicts go in there.  Mr. Davis, why didn’t you call police about it, rather than blame us?  If the windows are painted, and the door open, why not lock the door?  If the windows are covered and the door is open, can you see in there at night?  What’s wrong with this picture?

Mr. Davis states, we’ve been doing this since the 90’s and it’s just not working. But he keeps at it, and that’s the definition of insanity.” Mr. Davis is an expert in graffiti removal and psychiatry, his part time job is tattooing.  That’s just your opinion, Sir, just like this is my opinion.  Again, look at your neighborhood today, it’s covered with graffiti, and your right, Sir, I don’t have to paint out graffiti, what I can do is report the graffiti to city hall, where there is an ordinances that will fine property owners $500, if they don’t take graffiti off in 30 days, and the city sure needs the money.  The insanity statement is the same if you care about the quality of life, reduction of crime, economic development, tourism, and just picking up a piece of trash, to keep this city clean. You call it insanity, I call it taking pride in the city I love, and a lot of other people think the same way.