Assistant District Attorney Dino Privitera expressed delight at the sentence. ``I think the judge is sending a clear message that graffiti will not be tolerated, beginning today,'' he said.
The defense lawyer, Alan J. Tauber, said: ``This will be appealed. I understand that [the judge] has a passion for these cases. I think he really lost perspective in this case. I feel justice was not done here.''
Tindle, of the 3200 block of A Street, has an automatic right to a new trial in Common Pleas Court. He has no prior criminal record.
Tindle and a 16-year-old friend were arrested May 5 shortly after a neighborhood activist in Kensington spotted them at 4:20 a.m. spray-painting huge graffiti monikers in black lettering on buildings in the 1800 and 1900 blocks of Front Street.
The activist, Michael Blackie, confronted the youths and went to a pay phone and called police. The two were caught after a chase, each carrying a backpack filled with cans of spray paint. The second defendant is awaiting trial in juvenile court.
At Tindle's one-day bench trial yesterday, Blackie was the star witness. He gave a detailed account of watching Tindle and his partner spray-paint eight properties, including two former bank buildings, a roofing company, a bar and an auto-repair shop.
After the trial, McCaffery praised Blackie for helping police catch Tindle and for testifying.
``I wish we had more citizens like him,'' the judge said.
For his part, Blackie, 36, a social worker, said he was pleased with the outcome.
``I think what Judge McCaffery did is a beacon of hope for all of us who live in graffiti-ridden neighborhoods,'' Blackie said. ``I think it's justice. I don't think it's out of line at all. . . . This stuff has to stop.''
McCaffery convicted Tindle of criminal mischief, possession of an instrument of crime, and conspiracy for each property he defaced. He sentenced him to 11 1/2 to 23 months for the graffiti sprayed on each of six buildings.
Traditionally, graffiti vandals have received gentle handling in the city court system.
The first jail sentence ever for a graffiti offense was handed out only in May when Municipal Court Judge J. Earl Simmons Jr. ordered Paul Z. Singer, a Center City businessman, to serve 310 days in jail for graffiti scrawlings in Fishtown and North Philadelphia.
That case also has been appealed to Common Pleas Court.
