SEATTLE — A Seattle man said he was assaulted Wednesday after trying to stop teenagers from spray-painting graffiti on the Ballard Bridge.
William Graf told KIRO 7 he felt compelled to act when he witnessed a group of teens tagging an auto shop on 15th Avenue NW before moving on to vandalize the side of the Ballard Bridge.
“You shouldn’t be doing that. You shouldn’t be defacing other people’s property. That’s wrong,” Graf said.
It started with Graf’s gut feeling around 1 p.m. on Wednesday.
“I think to myself, that really sucks that I would drive by and not do anything,” Graf said.
That instinct pushed him to pull out his phone and start recording when he saw a young man spray-painting the bridge.
Graf confronted the teen.
“I got up close to him, you know, to get their picture,” Graf added. “He didn’t like that.”
Then, he says the teen swung at him.
“He came at me again with the spray can and started to attack me with the can and I kicked it out of his hand. And then that’s when he hit me,” Graf recalled.
Graf was left with a bloody bottom lip, but he says what hurt the most was watching the property being vandalized.
“It’s just annoying that our city can just turn into a big garbage can. That’s all. It just bothers me. It’s wrong. And it didn’t used to be like this. But I’m an old guy, so back in the day,” he said.
After Graf posted the videos to Nextdoor, he wasn’t alone. The community rallied, also frustrated by the graffiti in the neighborhood.
Graf says he called 911 multiple times, but police did not respond. Seattle Fire responded and treated him at the scene.
The Seattle Police Department says they’ve tried to reach Graf after the fact, but there’s no word yet on why officers didn’t respond to his initial 911 calls.
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