An Interview with Sokem

While writing “Don’t Get Bagged in Queens” for Derange over the summer, I interviewed Sokem KYS about his experiences painting in New York, and tapped into his knowledge of how the NYPD prosecutes graffiti writers in the city. I highly recommend checking out Covenant New York, a project he’s involved in, particularly their interview with a retired Vandal Squad officer.

During our conversation, Sokem spoke on a number of interesting facets of the legal system that were not included in the final cut of the story, which are now available below in an extended transcript:

To start this off, I know some areas of New York are more harsh on it than others, but what’s your perspective or experience with how the NYPD handle graffiti in the city?

The last time I got booked, they were kinda just trying to look for any charge they could throw my way. I think they just kinda do this to discourage you from writing graffiti, cause right now they have an issue - at least Manhattan and Brooklyn - the courts are dropping everything. That’s going from the little kid doing marker tags, to the grown ass drug addicts rappelling off buildings. The VS officer was taking my prints, and I was like, ‘dude why do you even bother doing this?’ - every time I get bagged, I’ve never been bagged in the act - I’ve only been sent texts or calls or they’ve grabbed me when I’m not committing a crime. Never been caught in the act, it’s always some bullshit. But, I’m sitting there with this Vandal Squad officer [REDACTED], I don’t think I’m ever gonna be able to forget his name. I’ve seen him six or seven times at this point. We’re on a first name basis. He just treats it as like, ‘this is just my job, I retire in a few years and I need my pension’. If you’re in a residential area like Queens, or like a borough that’s a lot more residential, they’re just gonna fuck your shit up. I think New York recognizes that graffiti is a part of the fabric of the city, but only in non-residential areas.

What happened to me was that I got bagged on Myrtle and Wyckoff, which feels like it’s part of the Bushwick Brooklyn area, but I guess by definition of borders, it’s the beginning of Ridgewood Queens area, right?

Wait that’s where you got bagged and they charged you in Queens for that? That doesn’t sound right - or I guess I’ve never been caught up in that area, maybe I guess that would make sense?

I guess so. They told me they were out looking for writers, too.

There used to be a thing called T&T. It’s not really a thing anymore but pre-pandemic, Vandal Squad used to go out on Tuesdays and Thursdays - T&T - and look for writers and fuck their shit up. Cause they’re like, ‘oh we know you’re not going to be out writing on a Friday or Saturday, you’re probably going to be out on a weekday doing some bullshit’. They used to spin blocks and just fuck shit up. I actually had a homie get popped in Bushwick a few weeks ago for catching a marker tag, and then one a month ago in Bedstuy.

Those guys live in New York, yeah?

Some of them. I’ve had out of town homies come here and get bagged, I’ve had homies that live here get bagged. It’s like a neverending cycle, but the city never prosecutes it.

Yeah, they dropped my charges too. I just had to sit there for 24 hours.

That’s the thing. Do you have one consistent tag that you write?

Well, they asked me to point out what I wrote.

So, if you get sent to central bookings, it will always get thrown out because there’s no reason anyone should be doing 1 to 3 days for graffiti. But they keep it on the books. I had to turn myself in with my boy [REDACTED] for catching a marker tag. They held us, it got thrown out, and then they used that case to identify me on my past six cases. That’s why it’s important to wear a mask. Even if they don’t catch you in the act, now there’s just so many cameras that they use that first case as like, this is how we know this is him. As long as they have your face one time doing the same shit, they’ll just fuck your shit up.

So I think what happened was that since I was trying to go back to Canada the next day, they considered me a flight risk. Like, they wanted to hold me until I saw a judge. I think typically, if I lived in New York, they could have just given me a DAT, like a promise to appear in court, right?

I mean, maybe if it was the Bronx, Manhattan, or Brooklyn. But Queens is like a whole other thing, they’re not nice out there. It’s not just about getting the arrest. I had a homie get popped, he was leaving the next day. He came in from Denver, and he was writing in the Lower. He was out in five hours and they gave him a DAT. I don’t think they really care too much about you being a flight risk, because like, it’s graffiti. But if they wanna make your night worse, they can make your night worse and hold you.

Yeah, I think they were also just trying to flex on me.

I’ve also had experiences where a cop has rolled up on me mid fill and just rolled the window down like ‘yo, what the fuck are you doing?’ Didn’t even get out of his car.

The only other time I’ve been caught doing any sort of vandalism was in Vancouver, and the cop didn’t even get out of his car. He was just like ‘come on man’.

I think that’s how graffiti should be viewed, I was just talking with the homies about this last night. It should be a ticket. Unless you’re like, breaking into a building. I’ve been swarmed a few times, where they’ve shut down the whole block. Most of the time, when they find out it’s graffiti, they’re just like, we just wasted all our time on this?

I mean, in Montreal people used to do time over graffiti, but these days, you get caught and pretty much no matter what you’re just getting a ticket.

I don’t think we’re ever going to get to a point where they’re handing out tickets for graffiti. I think it’s only gonna get worse. In like ten years, it’s gonna be a rough ride.

I know you’ve painted in a lot of other cities in America. I don’t know if you’ve gotten caught up elsewhere, but how does New York compare to other cities you’ve painted in?

Dude, if you can paint New York well, you can paint anywhere in the US well. I’ve done East Coast trips, and the cops, they’re so bad, in comparison to New York. You learn to blend in a little bit better painting New York, and you learn to use the darkness in your favor. And then the infrastructure in other cities, like highways - I love to paint highways, and I don’t get to paint those in New York because it’s not really a highway city with those big structures on the left and right sides. I really love to paint other cities, but New York to me is like a challenge that I don’t want to stop pursuing.

Yeah. I’ve heard other writers, like on Living Proof, say the same thing. If you can paint New York you can paint anywhere. Do you think that’s because of the NYPD’s attitude towards graffiti specifically, or because there’s such an insane police presence?

I think it’s both. I think there’s just so much going on in the city that you have to pay attention to so much. Over time, you kind of learn to breathe with the city. You kind of become one with it. I’ve always described graffiti as like, yeah it’s cool, it’s tomfoolery and vandalism, but it’s also a way of interacting with the environment. When you start to move around the city and really pay attention to like, the people, the places and how the city moves, you become one with it. It makes painting a lot easier.

I don’t know much about icards, but I know you did like a zine focusing on those. Can you tell me about that?

So that’s going back to the camera thing and the court thing. My theory on this, is that because there’s so much going on and there’s not enough judges for it, they created this system where detectives instead of judges are now allowed to hand out warrants. But instead of it being called a warrant, it’s called an icard. An icard is really just a smaller version of a warrant that was signed off by a detective instead of a judge. It’s a lot less work to get, literally just a detective being like ‘we’ve seen him on camera before, we’ve got him on camera now, if we stop him or see him we’re gonna grab him.’ It only really plays into minor crimes, because for a bigger crime they’ll just get a warrant.

I’ll tell you what just happened to the homie - he came here, he was painting, catching a marker tag in Crown Heights. They bagged him, and made sure to write down his tag in the police report, and also have his stickers in there. Even though it got thrown out, if he comes back in six months, doesn’t get bagged, catches a gate and he isn’t wearing a mask and the people that own that gate use their surveillance footage and submit it to the city, then an icard will be issued for his arrest. I feel like it’s the NYPDs way of cheating the legal system. But it also applies to things like petty theft, and smaller violent crimes, but for the most part from what I know they really just use it for graffiti because it’s easy to surveil and track when they have a lot of detectives using it for small warrants.

Do you know a lot of writers that have icards?

Yeah. I feel like a lot of writers don’t know it’s an icard, because a lot of guys don’t look into the legal system or don’t look into what’s fucking them over because they just want to write graffiti, but that’s why a lot of writers cannot get caught hopping the turnstyles. Don’t get caught hopping the turnstiles, because if you have an icard, that’s gonna fuck you up.

And isn’t it difficult to find out if you have an icard or not?

Yeah, you can’t find out. That’s the other magic part. You have to get stopped. A couple months ago I was getting on the train and I had my bike. I went through the emergency exit and there were cops hiding on the stairs. They stopped me and saw that I had my bike. They didn’t even want to deal with it. They ran my name, and they were like ‘yo, you have an icard’. But I was like, “I just went to court last week and handled all my shit, what do you mean?” They said no, you have a brand new one. “For what?” Graffiti.

So then what happens when you get stopped and then it comes up that you have an icard?

They’re supposed to get a transit van and send you to the closest precinct, and then central booking.

Being in central booking was fucked up. Everyone inside was mad nice, but like, the conditions in there were straight up inhumane. It’s fucked up they do it that way. I was just glad to be in the misdemeanor bin, because looking across at the felony cell, I was like, holy fuck I’m glad I’m not in there.

Bro there’s like, actual real criminals in New York jails. I feel like a lot of times it’s like battery and domestic violence. So much domestic violence.

Even in the misdemeanor bin, I was the only person not in for something violent.

New York’s a violent ass city. There was a big cleanup, the quality of life initiative 20 years ago where they went hard on violent crime. I don’t think that ideology ever left the hood in New York. A lot of my friends here in that socioeconomic group are still carrying that violence from old New York, and a lot of the writers who might be better off aren’t.

Another big part of it is that most of the NYPD aren’t from New York. You might have a few fools that are from the community and want to give back, but most of the time it’s people from upstate and Long Island, these super red MAGA communities that take the train into the city and work in the city as cops.

I saw on Covenant there’s an interview with a former Vandal Squad employee.

Yeah. The guys were looking at current or previous people that worked for the Vandal Squad task force, and we stumbled upon this guy and founds his LinkedIn. We got a hold of him and told him we were interested in knowing about his career chasing graffiti as a cop for like, a school project. His take on it was just like, ‘I’m doing this for my job. I’m friends with graffiti writers, I have canvases in my home. It’s just a crime and if I see it being committed as a crime I have to go after it. If it’s legal then I see no problem with it.’ I think the writers and the cops both know that they’re just a part of this fucked up system. The cops don’t usually end up realizing it until they’re retiring or retired. They really are fans of graffiti.

In that interview, he said when they caught Desa he was brought to the Ridgewood 104th Precinct. I thought that was funny because that’s where I got brought too. They tried to fuck me over man, they were crazy on it. So when I saw that, it all made sense.

They went after Desa in a fucked way too. Even though he got bagged in 104th, they had people going out in every precinct to find him. They did him so dirty.

So even after all the bullshit you’ve gone through already, and how fucked it can be painting in New York, what keeps you motivated to keep going?

I don’t know what keeps me motivated…. I just love it. I feel like in the same way that skating as a kid felt like a part of me, that’s what graffiti has become. It’s just something that I do at this point.

I think about graffiti all day. It plays into every relationship I have, every friendship that I have. I can’t go anywhere without drawing or scratching my name into some bullshit. I don’t know what keeps me motivated, I just like to paint. It makes me happy. Nothing else exists when I’m painting. I’m present, I’m there. It’s therapeutic. I feel like I’m James Bond sometimes. It’s fun.

I feel like painting New York is a blessing. Even though the consequences are kinda rough, graffiti here doesn’t just play into the act of painting, everything in New York is kind of ingrained in graffiti, whether that be the heads of fashion brands, skate brands, rappers, musicians, or literally anything. Even though it’s like an if you know you know kinda thing, there’s respect for it because you don’t get anything out of it, you know? It’s not like you’re over here making music because one day you can make a lot of money off of it, that’s probably not happening with graffiti. You’re just doing it because you want to do it.