Evanston police teamed up with school resource officers in the arrests of three juveniles who have been charged with defacement of the Evanston Ecology Center last month and may have been members of a "tagging crew" operating throughout the city.

Police announced Tuesday that the juveniles were charged with felony criminal defacement of property. They have been assigned to District II Juvenile Court in Skokie.

Investigator says the incidents date back to Oct. 7 when administrators for the Ecology Center reported that unknown offenders used spray paint to deface the exterior of the building, at 2024 McCormick Blvd.

At the time, police responded and documented the damage, noting the words BEN, CRAZY and GGIT, were spray-painted onto the brick in large letters constituting significant damage, said Cmdr. Tom Guenther, the department's public information officer, in a release about the arrests.

The case was then assigned to Evanston police school resource officers and juvenile detectives, who conducted various interviews, until several juveniles of interest were identified as possible suspects, he said.

Continuing this investigation, officers sought these juveniles who were subsequently interviewed by Evanston school resource officers and juvenile detectives, he said.

Evanston investigators learned that the graffiti damage to the Ecology Center was directly linked to a "tagging crew" operating throughout Evanston, according to Guenther.

Investigators began to link various noted tagging monikers, which then began to focus on a single group of individuals. Suspect interviews revealed that the word BEN was an acronym standing for "Bomb Every Nation" and that the word "Bomb" means "spray paint everything in sight," Guenther said.

Extensive interviews conducted by investigators resulted in the identification and arrest of the three juveniles, who were directly connected to the vandalism and criminal damaging of the Ecology Center, he said.

All three juveniles were charged with felony criminal defacement of property.