Greensboro offers $5,000 reward for tips in downtown graffiti case

Greensboro Crime Stoppers offered up to $5,000 for information that could help police identify the people marking downtown businesses with graffiti and tags, putting a cash reward behind a cleanup fight that has already cost at least one property owner more than $2,000.

The latest target area has included buildings around West McGee Street and South Elm Street, where Kim Grimsley Ritchy said her family owns a property that has been repeatedly tagged over the last six months. She said Greensboro Code Compliance sent a notice in November and that the graffiti has hurt the building’s appearance and made it harder to lease the former M’Coul’s Public House location. Ritchy also said she wanted more support from the city, including cameras on the backside of the parking lot.

The case has added pressure on downtown enforcement efforts that officials say have become more aggressive. Larry Roberts, the city’s code compliance chief, said the department moved away from a complaint-driven approach and now makes monthly checks, keeps more patrol presence downtown and relies on bike officers and citizens to report graffiti. City code compliance says its work is meant to improve neighborhood appearance and help protect property values, which puts the cost of repeated vandalism on owners first and then on the broader public when city staff, police and cleanup crews have to respond.

The graffiti also fit a pattern that downtown businesses have seen before. In July 2022, Greensboro police said at least nine businesses and structures were vandalized with graffiti, including the Guilford Building and the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. Police said that incident was not gang-related, underscoring that the damage was treated as a broader downtown vandalism problem rather than a single isolated event.

More recently, the city again moved on downtown graffiti in November 2025, when 24 businesses were given notices requiring them to remove it within 10 days. Eight of those 24 were already in compliance in that report. The latest reward offer signals that city leaders want more help from the public, and Greensboro/Guilford Crime Stoppers said it depends on anonymous tips from residents, law enforcement and the media to help solve crimes.