Caught in the act: 80-year-old punched after confronting teens vandalizing Seattle bridge

 A Seattle man said he was assaulted Wednesday after trying to stop teenagers from spray-painting graffiti on the Ballard Bridge.

William Graf told KIRO 7 he felt compelled to act when he witnessed a group of teens tagging an auto shop on 15th Avenue N.W. before moving on to vandalize the side of the Ballard Bridge.

“You shouldn’t be doing that,” Graf said. “You shouldn’t be defacing other people’s property. That’s wrong.”

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It started with Graf’s gut feeling around 1 p.m. on Wednesday.

“I think to myself, that really sucks that I would drive by and not do anything,” Graf said.

That instinct pushed him to pull out his phone and start recording when he saw a young man spray-painting the bridge.

Graf confronted the teen.

“I got up close to him, you know, to get their picture,” Graf added. “He didn’t like that.”

Then, he said the teen swung at him. A video of the incident can be seen here.

“He came at me again with the spray can and started to attack me with the can, and I kicked it out of his hand,” Graf recalled. “And then that’s when he hit me.”

Graf was left with a bloody bottom lip, but he says what hurt the most was watching the property being vandalized.

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“It’s just annoying that our city can just turn into a big garbage can. That’s all. It just bothers me. It’s wrong,” he said. “And it didn’t used to be like this. But I’m an old guy, so back in the day.”

After Graf posted the videos to Nextdoor, he wasn’t alone. The community rallied, also frustrated by the graffiti in the neighborhood.

Graf said he called 911 multiple times, but police did not respond. Seattle Fire responded and treated him at the scene.

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) said they’ve tried to reach Graf after the fact, but there’s no word yet on why officers didn’t respond to his initial 911 calls.