Skating and tagging can bring other woes

Aaron Clute
Independence

To the editor:
In response to “Let ’em skate and tag” (Andre Riley’s April 21 column), I’m almost 25 years old and I’ve been aggressive inlining for 11 years now. I grew up street skating in Independence and downtown Kansas City. I’ve been skating a lot of the parks in the area, including the one in Hill Park even before it officially opened.

If I remember right, the city was going to originally put Hill Park in another location but then I heard from a city guy that they got that land for “next to nothing,” so that’s where it ended up. Ever since it has been opened. I’ve seen numerous fights, heard about gun and knife threats, a few major injuries and have regularly witnessed kids smoking marijuana right in front of everyone without a care if anyone is watching.

I don’t quite understand why people come up there to “tag.” Half the time it’s not even skaters doing it. It’s just random kids who probably steal a couple spray cans out of their parents’ garage and want to go somewhere to kill some time. And most of the time their “art work” is nothing more than writing out a few swear words or the “gang” they are supposedly in and they just happen to spell it wrong.

I don’t know if a haven for people to spray paint would be a good idea just because I think the people who do drugs and make threats to other people or the highly feared “gang members” would be the only ones using this place. But if it gets them out of the skate park and away from all of us skaters who are clean and have nothing to do with that lifestyle, then I guess I would say go for it. Just expect the crime and drug rate to go up where the facility for tagging would be located.