Fresh ‘Wicked’ Tag Possibly Appeared Same Weekend as Fatal Stabbing

By chicago-pipeline at January 25, 2012 | 6:12 pm | Print

The fatal stabbing of 21-year-old Linear Caballero which occurred near the intersection of Western and Armitage Avenues this past Saturday evening, Jan. 21st, has resulted in a $750,000 bond for the ‘Wicked’ tagger aka 19-year-old Kristopher Klimala who will face 1st degree murder charges when he appears at Branch 64 court, 1340 S Michigan Ave. on Friday, Feb. 10, 2012.

Many thanks to neighborhood watchdog Joe Kopera, who wrote in yesterday to let The Pipeline know about the court date.

Elaine Coorens of Our Urban Times (our partner-in-crime for the Celebrate! holiday magazine) is covering the unfortunate news more closely than we are, so visit her site for the latest news on this very sad story, which has also prompted lots of feedback on the Wicker Park Committee Facebook Page.

Back in May 2010, we’d included this photo of a ‘Wicked’ tag on a street’s blog post encouraging area business owners to go to court to help prosecute ‘VTC’ tagger Nathan DeLuna. Nandika Gervais, then Doobay, covered the court sentencing for DeLuna, which we’d published in the May 18, 2010 Pipeline newsletter (yes, we really had to dig into the archives to find that blast-from-the-past!)

Klimala’s Wicked’ tag was promptly removed from the former office of Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez at 2201 W. North  shortly after we snapped the photo in May of 2010. We hope the same will be true for this new tag, too, which we noticed yesterday, Jan. 24, 2012, while walking past a building we walk by pretty frequently, begging the question of, ‘Could Klimala had sprayed this tag just last weekend before his arrest?’

 

 

Bucktown Featured Logan Square Neighborhoods Residential Updates Wicker Park Kristopher Klimala, Nandika Gervais