'Heaven spot' turned deadly for teen tagger in PNW
SEATTLE, Wash. (KOIN) -- When Alejandro Gaytan was young he did graffiti. Now he only creates commissioned murals and has permission to paint pieces and keep graffiti taggers at bay.
"I stopped doing graffiti and the only reason I kind of started back was to connect to Xavier," his teenage son who was driven by his love for skateboarding, fashion and design. Alejandro tried showing his son how to turn his interests into an artistic career.
From time to time, Alejandro comes back to paint in honor of Xavier, whose tag was ANOM (short for Anomaly). "He liked Hello Kitty. And he was kind of on the gothic side. So I did like a gothic Hello Kitty."
But it pains him. Alejandro wants to start fresh and leave his past life of DJ-ing and graffiti behind.
He has "zero desire" to paint. "It's just the taste of it has kind of gone from my lips. I'd rather do something that's going to help you, that's going to last the rest of your life."
July 30, 2023
In graffiti culture, "heaven spots" are high risk/high reward places to leave your tag. Rooftops. Bridges. Overpasses. In the name of gaining street cred, graffiti writers take on the risk.
In June 2023, a US District Court judge issued an injunction that stopped Seattle police from enforcing its anti-graffiti ordinance, ruling it was too broad and could infringe on First Amendment rights.
Those news reports, Alejandro said, gave Xavier the wrong idea.
"Him showing me news stories, 'Look Dad, it's fine,'" Alejandro told KOIN 6 News. "I'm like, yeah, I understand, but there's also other trouble that can go along with this and other dangers and you need to be aware of these things."
Alejandro caught Xavier one time tagging the 30-foot elevated rail at the Seattle Center Monorail and grounded him for that.
"So that was a time that was kind of hard for me because he was very angry and upset that he was grounded and was very much rebelling at home and mad about the whole situation," he said. "But I felt like it was necessary. That was not the place to be doing graffiti at all. And his impression was, 'Nothing's going to happen to me.'"
But his son tried again to hit this heaven spot.
Xavier was hit and killed by the monorail around 9 p.m. on that Sunday. KOMO reported Seattle police looked at video of the incident that showed the teen climbed onto a roof and was “spray painting a building adjacent to the tracks prior to being struck.”
Xavier Gaytan was 14.
"There's a skate park a couple blocks away," Alejandro said. "And they said that they were walking back to catch the bus home. And he said, 'Oh, hold on real quick,' and somehow climbed up here and you see the paint mark where it was."
Heeding the warnings
Xavier, his second son, "definitely was always full of love and light and very rambunctious and always having a good time, whether it was clowning around or giving you a hug," Alejandro said. "He loved to dance, so he would always be like, 'Oh, let's put on some music and take a video of me dancing.'"
But the sadness of the senseless loss still overwhelms him.
"Sometimes it's fine, but other times I'll just go drive by and I'll just see the monorail and I'll just start to cry," he said, as he tried to describe his loss. "When all the oxygen gets sucked out of the room, it's kind of hard to breathe and you really kind of try to look for any sort of an answer, but you can't find anything."
Alejandro said a lot of younger kids in Xavier's circle have heeded the warning about "heaven spots" seriously. He knows some people closer to his own age who until recently still chased the street notoriety of the heaven spots, but stopped after learning about what happened to Xavier.
"Life's too much of a gift to be taking risks like that for notoriety on the streets," Alejandro told KOIN 6 News.
As for the law, in February 2024 the courts reinstated Seattle's anti-graffiti ordinance. Seattle police are now able to enforce their anti-graffiti policies.
Alejandro's next chapter
After Xavier died, Alejandro Gaytan had to restart his life. He took a new job -- baking focaccia.
That came with its own challenges -- bad batches, failures, frustration. But on his walk to work, he noticed sign on a yoga studio: "Humble Warrior."
"And just for some reason I'm like, 'Oh, I feel like I've been humbled from my experience, and I used to be kind of wild.' So I'm a humbled warrior, so maybe I should check this place out."
His journey began by "changing some old habits that I had and getting into doing yoga and meditation and trying to get my mind, body and soul right."
He now walks through the world with a moving meditation: "This big blossom from the heart, the many petaled Lotus, the energy of the Earth that rises up, meets at your heart. Reach forward. Offer it out."
The lotus flower is a powerful symbol in yoga, representing enlightenment, purity, and spiritual growth. It also resonates with the idea that a beautiful life can emerge from adversity, and that even a little bit of "muck" is required to create something extraordinary.
He also has an entirely new mindset.
"More of a peaceful outlook than being, let's say, 'angry chef' storming around and trying to control every situation when you can't control every situation, but you think you can, and just taking more of a calm approach and being mindful and taking a step back and breathing and listening to your heart more."
Yoga is also when he discovers breakthroughs in his baking.
"I was struggling hard. I was like, 'Oh, the bread's got valleys. It's hard. I can't do this. I can't do it.' And then I don't know what happened. I think it's from the yoga and the meditation I just figured it out."
And it's in these moments of stillness he feels closer to his son, Xavier.
"Oftentimes during yin yoga, I'll maybe see a vision of him in the meditation, and I never thought that doing yoga would help bring me close to him in those sort of ways," Alejandro said. "That has been something that's been very warming and calm inside because I feel like he's always around me."
He's now a certified yin yoga instructor and hopes to help others heal.