Arlington Heights police were notified earlier this week that the Mariano’s sign at the southwest corner of Dryden Place and Kensington Road was tagged by graffiti. Here’s how the sign looked on Friday, March 25, 2022 with “MP 13” marked with black spray paint over the sign.
On Saturday, March 26, 2022, the number ‘1’ was discovered erased, so the graffiti displayed a redacted “MP 3.”
Since the sign with the graffiti faces the Dryden Apartments and since there is some history of violence at the apartment buildings, there is some question whether the Mariano’s sign graffiti is somehow connected to the apartment buildings. On Friday April 16, 2010 the lower half of a severed body with tattoos was found near a dumpster in the back parking lot at the Marketview Apartments in the block of 0-99 North Dryden Place in Arlington Heights, which are currently known as the Dryden Apartments. The crime has not been solved and the homicide victim was described as a male/white or male/Hispanic. The upper half of the body was found in Lions Woods Forest Preserve near Golf Road and River Road in Des Plaines less than one month later in May 2010.
Of course, nobody knows whether the graffiti at Mariano’s is a prank or actual gang graffiti, but here are the possible interpretations … the graffiti represents …
1. a prank that a group or lone offender felt compelled to “shock” the community or commit some other type of challenge “for fun.”
2. actual gang graffiti that is claiming territory near the intersection of Kensington Road and Dryden Place — possibly an outside group intimidating a gang in the area, or a group nearby that is claiming their turf.
If it’s gang-related graffiti, it’s similar to the violent gang MS-13 marking, but it could be a play on the initials — MP for Mount Prospect or something else. ‘MP’ has also been connected to the words “Mexican Power.” Google search results also turn up a gang known in the Los Angelos area that uses “MP13” and is reported to be a Filipino gang known as Mabuhay Pinoy Trece. Mabuhay is a Filipino greeting which means “long live” and Pinoy is a common informal self-reference used by Filipinos to refer to citizens of the Philippines, either at their home country or in a state of emigration. Trece translates to the number 13. The letter ‘M’ is the 13th letter in the alphabet.
Analyzing the change from “MP 13” to “MP 3”, this could be some additional pranking, or Mariano’s might have tested the removal solution, or they didn’t have enough solution to remove all of the graffiti.
We’ll see if we can get any additional information soon.
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