A 3 a.m. vandalism job on the Valencia Street ice cream shop Smitten left windows broken and “Free Palestine” graffiti on the storefront, and it may not be a coincidence that the store is Jewish-owned.

Another local reaction to the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict has left a Valencia Street ice cream shop boarded up, and possibly closed indefinitely. Mission Local reports that the Jewish-owned ice creamery Smitten was vandalized and tagged with graffiti early Wednesday morning, and one front window was prominently tagged with the words “FREE PALESTIEN” (sic).

When SFist went by at 1:45 Tuesday, we found all the windows of the shop boarded up. The store usually opens at 2 p.m., and it’s unclear whether the shop will reopen Wednesday. Mission Local’s report from Wednesday morning describes a storefront “smashed to pieces,” whose “windows and two doors were covered in plastic, and shards of glass were visible on the pavement, as well as inside the shop.”

The parklet outside Smitten was not affected or damaged, and we did not observe any notable vandalism to any adjacent Valencia and 20th street storefronts.

Mission Local got a statement from SFPD, who say they were alerted by a 2:49 a.m. alarm activation, and sent officers to the scene. “When they met with the victim, they were able to determine that the business had been vandalized for unknown reasons.”

It’s not immediately clear whether the vandalism will be considered or investigated as a hate crime. Per Mission Local, Smitten founder Robyn Sue Fisher is Jewish, though it may be purely coincidental that this business was targeted with said vandalism and graffiti.

Related: Anti-Jewish Graffiti Appears on Market Street Following Pro-Palestinian March [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

What’s become a Pride Weekend tradition returned with the annual tagging of the former Stud, but this weekend’s taggery spready to a half-dozen adjacent buildings, and four cars were thoroughly vandalized.

Warning: The images in this post contain a little profanity here and there.

It almost seemed poetic justice that the former home of now-shuttered The Stud, once the oldest continuously operating LGBTQ bar in San Francisco, now gets ruthlessly tagged every year on Pride Weekend. After all, the building’s new owner painted over the murals by queer artists in 2020, so maybe all’s fair in love and painting over other people’s shit?

But this year’s Pride Weekend graffiti proceedings took an unfair and much darker turn. KGO reports that vandals also trashed four cars this year while spraypainting the graffiti, demolishing windshields and leaving giant cratered dents on the roofs of the cars. Security footage from one of the cars confirms that this destruction occurred simultaneous to the graffiti session.

"This one was worse [than previous years],” nearby business owner Frank Skubal told KGO. “The tagging was comparable but the fact that they demolished several cars' windshields and hoods, what you have is completely undriveable."

And it’s pretty clear the tagging is recent, with timely messages like “Avenge Banko,” “Fuck DeSantis,” and “Kill Elon Musk.”

Skubal notes that he’s pretty astounded at the lax law enforcement response, given the magnitude of damage and how long this activity was allowed to go on Saturday night.

"The bigger concern also is how could they get away with this? This didn't happen in five minutes," he told KGO.

KGO also adds that one individual whose car was vandalized “lives in San Francisco but was planning to drive his car home to Canada in the next week or two. Now he can't because his car is undrivable due to the condition it's in.”

This annual unsanctioned graffiti riot spread much further to adjacent buildings than it did in previous years, and some jokers climbed fire escapes to take their tagging to a second level.

The violent turn of the annual Pride Weekend tagging of The Stud presents this yearly act of civil disobedience in a much different light. And it sure can’t be a welcome development for whatever Redfin realtor is running this open house down the alley.

Related: The Stud’s Former Home Got Thoroughly Tagged On Pride Weekend, and Then Countertagged On Top of That [SFist]

Images: Joe Kukura, SFist

In a long-overdue move, SF Public Works will stop charging small businesses and building owners for having graffiti on their buildings, and instead come out and clean off the tagging for free.

Ask any small business or building owner what the most back-asswards thing about running a San Francisco storefront is, and they’ll probably respond how when a small business gets tagged, vandalized or graffitied, the property owner is on the hook for the fines. This was particularly problematic during the vandalism wave of the pandemic, and while Supervisor Hillary Ronen did get a temporary graffiti amnesty fine plan going during the pandemic, that only lasted about a year.

A better idea would have been for the city’s Public Works department to clean the graffiti and tagging. And that better idea is now a reality, as Public Works announced Wednesday they were launching a two-year pilot program to clean off graffiti for free, upon request.

According to their announcement, “The pilot program will work to relieve participating property owners of the financial burden of removing tags from their buildings, instead allowing professional Public Works crews or City contractors access to wipe out graffiti at zero cost to the effected property and business owners.”

“This program is a win for small businesses and property owners facing the expense of removing unwanted graffiti that creates an unwelcoming environment,” Mayor London Breed said in the announcement. “As San Francisco continues our recovery efforts, it’s critical that we stay focused on keeping our city safe and clean, while also continuing to support our small businesses to ensure they thrive. This graffiti abatement program is just one part of that effort but it will really help our neighborhoods and our City.”

The request portal to get your graffiti cleaned off for free is already live. Response times are listed as being between two to three days, except for parking and traffic signs, which could take as long as 20 days.

Related: Now SF Has a Graffiti Flash Mob; More Than 100 Taggers Coated Mission and 18th Streets Friday Night [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

Tagging and graffiti can once again result in fines on property owners, as the Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to end a year-long amnesty on fines for properties that don’t clean their graffiti off quickly enough.

It was just about a year ago, a scary time when hardly any of us were vaccinated, when the San Francisco unemployment rate was nearly double what it is now, and around half of SF small businesses were still closed, that Supervisor Hillary Ronen proposed legislation to temporarily suspend graffiti fines for property owners whose storefronts were tagged up and spray-painted.  

"First their shops are vandalized, and then the city comes along and hands them a ticket,” Ronen said in a March 2021 press release announcing the legislation in March 2021. “Honestly, it must feel like a slap in the face."

But that slap in the face is now slapping again. Tuesday afternoon, the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to reinstate the graffiti fines, and end the “suspension of certain provisions of the Graffiti Removal and Abatement Ordinance regarding issuance of certain violations.” Public works can now once again fine property owners between $300 and $500 for graffiti not cleaned up quickly enough.

Tuesday’s vote was the second reading on an original March 22 vote. Many supervisors discussed why they think the time for graffiti fine amnesty is over.

“The purpose of what we were trying to do,” Supervisor Ahsha Safai said at the March 22 board meeting, was “to give businesses and private property owners a break during the pandemic. But unfortunately, there were some unintended consequences that have grown really bad in a lot of areas of the city.”

Safai said property owners knew there wouldn’t be any graffiti fines, and therefore never cleaned it up. “We’ve reached the point where fines need to be reinstated,” he declared at the March 22 meeting.

Supervisor Ronen, even though it was her legislation that forgave the fines, also felt it was time to reinstate fines now that businesses are largely reopened. “At least, at the moment, we’re out of the worst of the pandemic, where businesses are up and operating again,” she said. “I really think this is the right move.”

Small business owners can (and will) argue that this is unfair to them, but fines are actually levied against the property owner, not the small business itself.

“The law that we suspended, and the law that we are reinstating, does not actually have small businesses as a responsible party,” Supervisor Aaron Peskin said last month. “It is actually the property owner under this law that is the responsible party.”

And this distinction may not even matter. The system, whatever you think of it, did pretty much work even before the pandemic. The owners or the business did respond to the Public Works notices and clean up the graffiti in almost all cases.  

“In only 3% of the cases pre-pandemic were fines ever actually assessed,” Peskin pointed out. “97% of the time they do it without actually having to be dragged in for a fine.”

So it is back to the old system where property owners have 30 days to clean graffiti or else face a fine. But any fees that had been waived by Ronen’s previous legislation will remain waived.

Related: Now SF Has a Graffiti Flash Mob; More Than 100 Taggers Coated Mission and 18th Streets Friday Night [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

It may be an isolated incident gone wrong, or could be yet another new form of emerging petty crime, that “more than 100 people" thoroughly tagged a Mission District corner’s storefronts and vacant buildings Friday night.

It’s by no means unusual for there to be tagging on Mission Street. What is unusual is a coordinated group of “more than 100” taggers going at it in the same spot, as KPIX reports that a graffiti flash mob coated the block of 18th and Mission Streets Friday night, in what now appears to have been a coordinated effort, as seen in the video below.

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The tweet above from KPIX’s Betty Yu refers to an “organized ‘spray paint party,’” and apparently one unnamed small business on 18th Street did cop to organizing a Friday night event. The owner of that unnamed business reportedly “told KPIX 5 that Friday’s event did get out-of-hand and stemmed from an ‘art show’ it hosted,” and that “The owner said that she helped clean up the mess.” KPIX adds that nearby residents claim that particular business “not only allegedly sells spray paint and art supplies to the vandals, but they said it promotes such gatherings.”

KPIX does not disclose which building is being tagged in the video, but SFist assessed the scene and can confirm that the building shown is a very large vacant building at the southeast corner of Mission and 18th Streets (right across the street from Duc Loi Supermarket, next door to Gracias Madre). That building has certainly drawn its share of street artists' wheat-paste posters over the years, but this mass tagging was something of a much different nature.

As of Monday morning, the owner of that vacant building has painted gray over the lion’s share of the graffiti. Yet the sidewalk still shows signs of graffiti mayhem, and plenty of fresh drips from a very recent paint-over job.

But plenty of other storefronts on the block were also hit. Parklets at 18th Street restaurants Ramenwell and Balompie Cafe still have a ton of visible graffiti, despite clean-up efforts that are not yet complete.

And the Mission Street-facing windows at Duc Loi Supermarket are freshly and badly tagged, yet its 18th Street-facing windows (between Mission and Valencia Streets) are simultaneously spotless. Friday’s night’s mass tagging seems to have mostly been limited to 18th Street storefronts, between Mission and  South Van Ness.

Most of the mess is cleaned up as of Monday morning. The mural-style “good tagging” on the street, which had been there previously and clearly was applied with a higher degree of artistic skill, does not appear to have been defaced much. What did get tagged appears to have been touched up since.

But it is the business owners who are on the hook for the cleanup efforts.

“It’s really unfortunate, we have so many small businesses that are struggling to recover,” SF Small Business Commission president Sharky Laguana told KPIX. “They’ve had one punch after another with the pandemic, a second wave and a third wave. And on top of that they have to deal with what I think is clearly an uptick in vandalism and graffiti.”

This was traditionally a double-whammy for small businesses, because they had to pay for cleanup out of their own pockets, plus they were subject to fines from the city. The Mission’s supervisor Hillary Ronen passed legislation a year ago to suspend graffiti fines for businesses, and that remains in effect. KPIX says that “the Board of Supervisors is discussing the possibility of bringing back fines,” but actually, the way the legislation is written says that those fines will remain suspended “until 90 days after the expiration of the Mayor’s Emergency Proclamation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.” Honestly… will that day ever come?

There appears a distinct possibility that this was a freak one-off event — organized by a small business and meant to jazz up the appearance of an unsightly vacant eyesore on their block — and things got out of control. Or it could be that taggers have taken a page from the sideshow drivers and are now organizing large meetups and events. If the taggers organized it, we may have to worry this practice will be duplicated. If a business organized it and saw things go wrong, well, there will likely be some tension between a few small business owners on 18th Street.

Related: Mission Street Loses Mind After 49ers Playoff Win, But Deplorable Taggers Paint On Muni Windshields [SFist]

Images: Joe Kukura, SFist

Remember this month’s tale of a Berkeley student who claimed he was racially profiled and detained illegally, held in jail for almost two days without being able to see a lawyer, and said that Berkeley police mocked his ethnicity? That story just got a whole lot less sympathetic now that the alleged victim, 21-year-old Ismael Chamu of San Francisco, has been arrested again for a brazen vandalism spree according to Berkeleyside. More than 30 acts of vandalism were committed on June 28, according to Berkeley police, including cars graffitied with the phrase “F*** White People,” fences tagged with “Kill Cops,” and the sides of Berkeley homes spray-painted with anarchist symbols and “F*** Liberal Scum.”

The ABC 7 video above shows several of the estimated 35 acts of vandalism, all of which Chamu is charged with being responsible for. “Some of the slogans were racially motivated, they were derogatory in nature. They identified people by race which makes it a hate crime,” Berkeley PD Sgt. Andrew Frankel told ABC 7.

Chamu's graffiti expressed anger toward "liberal scum," and as Berkeleyside notes, he had also been posting messages to Facebook about gentrification, and expressing anger toward the "right wing" too.

Neighbors near the vandalism sites convened on Nextdoor and went to police following Chamu's arrest, noting that he was carrying a switchblade and that tires had been slashed the same night of the vandalism — which appears to have occurred around the time of Chamu's late-night arrest along with an accomplice on suspicion of an unrelated burglary, in which he was quickly cleared.

Sgt. Frankel also spoke to KTVU, telling them, “17 vehicles had their tires slashed. F-the police, anarchy symbols, Antifa symbols, F-white people spray painted on people's cars," Frankel said.

Image: Berkeley PD

In addition to being just plain offensive, the vandalism has created significant problems for many of the victims. "One of my friends he still hasn't replaced his tires because his insurance doesn't cover it. So he still has to figure it out," Berkeley resident Ruben Escolero told KTVU.

Chamu is still in police custody and his bail is set at $85,000. He’s scheduled to be arraigned on all of the vandalism and hate crime charges on Monday, July 24, in Berkeley.

Related: Vandal Melts Slides, Causes $1 Million Damage To Popular Golden Gate Park Playground

Want to see an endless stream of garbage and graffiti on San Francisco streets and walls without getting anywhere near it? Just go on Twitter and follow @SF311Reports, where you can get an alert, usually with a charming photo, whenever there's a service request update. It's nice to see, mixed up the metaphorical garbage of Twitter, some actual, honest to god shit and trash, in my opinion.

Real estate website Trulia has crunched the numbers on 311 complaints during 2016 to learn that more than 70,00 of them were logged about tagging and graffiti. That was nearly 16 percent of the complaints overall. Bulky items like furniture, boxes, or mattresses left on the ground generated 67,000 complaints, or 15 percent of them.

Meanwhile, Hoodline has the related story of one serial vandal responsible for generating god knows how many 311 complaints with tags about a mysterious website. These tags are confined mostly to the Upper Haight, but they're numerous there, and they all say "Olevau.com." But why? The mystery is not very deep, but here it is:

The tags aren't sanctioned by the website itself, Hoodline learns, speaking to its administrative manager named Olivia Lang. "Olevau was built with All-of-You (pronunciation) in mind," Lang wrote in an email to Hoodline. "Olevau is simply a blank sheet of paper. A clean slate. A tool for communication. ... Olevau is strictly anonymous, allowing people to post with the freedom and the protection of an invisibility cloak."

Given anonymity and the sheet of paper that is the Upper Haight neighborhood, at least one Olevau.com fan is not very creative and made nothing but a stupid mess.

To get another perspective on Olevau, here's what one commenter on the bare-bones site wrote "So this is an imageboard but uglier and with less features!""The fucking revolution is here."

Asked about the tagging, Lang wrote that "The Founders of Olevau do not support, promote or condone Destruction & Violence within the community," she wrote. "Period. How the users of Olevau decide to express their love for the website is beyond our control. Olevau = Creation."

Extremely deep. On the site, the tags themselves were met with a mixed response. "which one of you spray painted shit all over sf" asks one commenter, who encourages the tagger to "keep it up."

Another counters: "STOP TAGGING THE HAIGHT. WE DON'T WANT TO SEE YOUR SELF-PROMOTING BULLSHIT. FUCK OFF."

It's a tie, I guess? And, Oliveau guy, I'm gonna let you finish, but let me just say that Cryst was the greatest SF tagger of all time.

Related: Alleged 'Cryst' Tagger Faces 29 Counts Of Vandalism, Might Be Defending His Tags In SFist Comments

oh, Bernal Rock, you're in more dire need of a Twitter account than any rock in history #prince #purple @Bernalwood pic.twitter.com/oV0KYPwx5G

— cristiano valli (@cristi4nov4lli) April 26, 2016

You know how there was a Bernie v. Hillary war happening with the graffiti on Bernal Rock over the weekend? Well, somebody decided to wipe the slate clean Monday, from the looks of it, with a fresh coat of purple in honor of the late, great Purple One himself, just as Purple Rain was screening at the Castro Theatre.

Perhaps, out of reverence, people will leave the thing alone for a while now.

A tagger taken to civil court this past summer by the city of San Francisco learned her fate last week, and it is an expensive one. The City Attorney's office announced that it had won a $217,831.64 judgement against the woman, and City Attorney Dennis Herrera expects her to pay up.

Terry Cozy, the person accused of spray painting a variation of "COZE" or "COZE1" around the city, has until February 15 to pay the amount due, reports the Chronicle.

Cozy would allegedly post photos of her tags to Instagram, Tumblr, and Flickr, but those pages were taken down when she was sued last summer. Officials decided to sue Cozy, instead of pursuing criminal charges, as the standard of proof is lower in a civil case. Also, they had apparently attempted criminal charges before.

"I would just say so far she has not been deterred by criminal prosecution," said Deputy City Attorney Victoria Weatherford last summer when the suit was announced.

“I don’t think it will stop graffiti in San Francisco, but I hope it makes people think twice,” Deputy City Attorney Jill Cannon told the paper. “We want people to know that when you damage property, there are consequences — maybe beyond what they anticipated.”

The total financial judgment is the result of an estimated $50,000 in damages, plus attorney's fees and various penalties. The City Attorney's office, notes the Chron, can seize Cozy's property or garnish her wages should she fail to pay the fine on time.

"The city spends upwards of $20 million a year on graffiti cleanup," says Herrera. "That’s unconscionable. Let the taggers foot the bill for their mischief.”

Previously: San Francisco Sues Prolific Graffiti Artist For $88,000 In Damage To Public Property

Hey, Biebs, looks like it is too late to say sorry. In a letter addressed to both Def Jam Records and Universal Music Group, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera today demanded the cooperation of both companies in the removal of corporate-sponsored pro-Justin Bieber graffiti spread across San Francisco.

The graffiti, which according to the City Attorney's Office is not limited to one neighborhood, is spray-paint stenciled ads for the Canadian pop star's recently released album Purpose.

Herrera is not feeling it for obvious reasons, and is insisting that the two companies not only help his office determine who, specifically, is responsible, but also potentially foot the bill for the clean up.

"With this letter, in accordance with my authority under state and local law, I demand your cooperation in my office’s investigation to identify all parties—including but not limited to business entities, individuals, contractors, subcontractors, or their agents—responsible for the aforementioned illegal graffiti vandalism in San Francisco," writes Herrera.

The City Attorney notes that each individual tag could result in a fine of $2,500, and that this would not be the first time San Francisco has taken on corporate marketers for similar stunts — referencing successful past cases against IBM, NBC Universal, Turner Broadcasting, and Zynga.

Herrera, who is clearly no fan of graffiti in any form, seems to take particular exception to corporate tagging of city property — going so far as to suggest that this specific example represents a diss from Bieber himself.

"This prohibited marketing practice illegally exploits our City’s walkable neighborhoods and robust tourism," he writes. "[It] intentionally creates visual distractions that pose risks to pedestrians on busy rights of way; and irresponsibly communicates to young people that likeminded lawlessness and contempt for public property are condoned and encouraged by its beneficiaries—including Mr. Bieber and the record labels that produce and promote him."

Whether this letter and potential suit will do anything to deter other corporate interests from tagging the streets of San Francisco is unclear, as any fines levied may simply be viewed as the cost of doing business. After all, bulletin boards aren't cheap either.

At the very least we now know that Dennis Herrera wants no part of it, and is willing to wield the power of his office in an effort to combat corporate tagging. However, may we perhaps suggest that there is one instance of graffiti that the City Attorney could get down with?

Related: Tech Bro Justin Bieber Is Ruining San Francisco Right Now

The day after some mysterious graffiti roiled San Francisco's French American International School with fears of an ISIS message, police say that they've nabbed the tagger, and determined that the spray-painted message was not a hate crime.

When San Francisco Police Department officers were called to the school on reports of a troubling tag Tuesday, initial reports raised concerns that the graffiti, spray-painted on a playground wall, depicted a symbol of ISIS, the terrorist group behind last week's series of coordinated attacks in Paris.

After investigation, however, police said that the image was instead "an eight pointed star with a crescent moon" and "a number seven" (subsequent images bore that description out), "a symbol affiliated with the 'Five-Percent Nation,' an offshoot of the Nation of Islam founded in New York and frequently referenced in hip-hop lyrics," ABC7 reports.

According to a press release sent by SFPD, "Video surveillance obtained from the scene captured a person of interest entering the playground overnight when the school was closed" and images from the footage was "distributed to all officers." On Wednesday, officers from Park Station spotted a man who they say matched those images at Fulton Street and Masonic Avenue: 44-year-old Edward Vanwright, a previously-convicted sex offender with no known address.

After SFPD's Special Investigations Division questioned Vanwright, they say they don't believe that his alleged graffiti had "any connection to terrorism" nor do they believe that he was making any "threat to the school, students, or staff."

SFPD spokesperson Officer Grace Gatpandan says that "there was insufficient evidence to charge Vanwright with a hate crime," but that he was booked into San Francisco County Jail on misdemeanor charges of trespassing and vandalism, as well as for being a sex registrant present on school grounds.

Previously: SFPD Investigating Possible Hate Crime After Vandalism At SF French American School

When a tagger gets caught in San Francisco, the miscreant is typically released on his or her own recognizance as they await trial, even if they face a massive number of charges. Not so for alleged vandal John Schenone of San Francisco, however, who stands accused of only one felony...but it's a doozy.

Schenone, a 62-year-old San Franciscan, was arrested last Tuesday after the words “NO MORE CHINESE” were spray painted in at least six locations in San Francisco. According to the San Francisco Police Department, investigators from the Special Investigations Division Hate Crime Unit "were immediately able to identify a vehicle and person of interest," and after a bulletin with the suspect details was circulated throughout the department, officers from Bayview Station spotted and detained Schenone, saying he's the one who did the deed.

Appearing in court on Friday, Bay City News reports that Schenone pled not guilty to one felony and at least two misdemeanor offenses, a far cry from the 19 charges an alleged tagger like Cryst faced earlier this year. But while Cryst was released after his initial arrest, Schenone will remain behind bars, as Judge Edward Torpoco said that he believes that Schenone "poses a public safety threat."

Prosecutors concurred with Torpoco's assessment, saying that when police searched Schenone's home, they found four guns, and they they believe he could easily get more.

Public defender Yali Corea-Levi, who took on the case after Schenone told Torpoco he couldn't afford an attorney (maybe he spent all his money on guns?), argued that Schenone legally owns the guns, and that "there are no allegations his client possessed any guns during the alleged spray-painting."

Given the nature of the crime, Torpoco was unswayed...but only to a point, as Schenone's bail was set at $155,000. A call to the San Francisco Sheriff's Department to see if the alleged tagger had posted that bond and been released was not returned as on Monday morning.

Previously: 62-Year-Old Man Arrested For Spray-Painting 'NO MORE CHINESE' All Over Bayview

The Lower Haight building with the $6,500 1-bedroom already got tagged. 🚫💲 “Don’t Waste Your $”

A photo posted by Andrew Dalton (@dolfapedia) on Aug 13, 2015 at 11:04pm PDT

On Wednesday, Hoodline founder Andrew Dudley wrote an article about a $6500/month one-bedroom apartment in Duboce Park — the most popular piece he's ever written, he says. And by Thursday, the building that contains that apartment was tagged, by a spray-paint wielding person saying the same thing many of us thought as we read Dudley's piece.

As Hoodline reports from 435 Duboce:

Yes, after more than four years of construction, the building at Duboce and Fillmore is finally ready for tenants, and its premium unit is apparently making up for lost time, rent-wise. Granted, it's a "penthouse" (the building is only three stories high, for what it's worth), offering a "panorama city view" and "private interior-facing decks." It also sports finishes like a Viking range and Carrara marble countertops, housecleaning services included, and "quality sound insulation," which should help protect you from the frequent rumbling of the N-Judah and the colorful street life outside your front door.

The entire unit is just 981 square feet, which translates to almost $7 per square foot, and the deposit is listed at $13,000. There are no photos available.

Two men suspected of vandalizing a historic military battery in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area ended up needing to be saved by the same law enforcement officers they tried to evade.

According to GGNRA spokesperson Alexandra Picavet, "two adult male suspects became stranded on a cliff near Battery Yates at the waterfront of Fort Baker" in Sausalito after they "tried to evade arrest by scrambling down a steep cliff near the water's edge" at around 4:30 Thursday evening.

The men, identified by ABC7 as Louis Murrillo and Zane Johnides, both of San Rafael, face charges including trespassing, resisting an officer and vandalism after rangers on patrol approached the men, who Picavet says were in a restricted area.

Instead of greeting the rangers, according to NPS ranger Scott Larson, "It appears they were trying to evade them by going down the hill, and it's a very steep cliff, so as one was trying to come back up the cliff, he got stuck and started to fall down."

"One was approximately 50 feet down, the other was 100 to 150 feet down," Battalion Chief Matt Barnes of the Southern Marin Fire Department told ABC7.

"Rangers, along with Southern Marin Fire Department, CHP helicopter and a Coast Guard boat rescued both men, who are now in custody," Picavet says.

"Rangers and Southern Marin Fire rescue team reached the first man to rescue him using technical rope skills and climbing gear," Picavet says. According to Barnes, it wasn't easy: MFD rescuers had to create their own anchors, with huge rods.

"We drive those into the ground to stabilize and secure ourselves to the land, then we go down and pick up the victim and bring them back up," Barnes told ABC7.

"The second man was lifted to safety by a long-line from the CHP helicopter," Picavet says. You can see a photo of his rescue above.

A news helicopter caught shots of graffiti on the structure, but Picavet, citing an ongoing investigation, declined to confirm if that's the vandalism for which they'd arrested Murrillo and Johnides.

According to Larson, the area "is closed to the public, so it's kind of a haven for people who like to vandalize."