Tempe, Arizona police have caught Penis Man

Police have captured the culprit behind the “Penis Man” graffiti tags that, er, popped up in several dozen spots across Tempe and Phoenix, Arizona over the last two months. (News report from December below.) While Penis Man quickly developed a cult following, the cops weren’t laughing. On Saturday, Tempe police revealed that they had nabbed Dustin Shomer, “on 16 counts of aggravated criminal damage, 8 counts of criminal damage and one count of criminal trespassing in the first degree.” Shomer has since released a statement on the Facebook Unmodded – NEIGHB’rhood Group, as reported in the Phoenix New Times:

“I just spent the last 24 hours in Tempe and Phoenix police custody for spraying ‘Penis Man,'” Shomer wrote. “They raided my condo and vehicle and swarmed my entire complex in west Phoenix with 25 heavily armed SWAT officers, and pointed a silenced assault rifle in my face.

“Anyone with any doubt who the bad guys are here … be certain it is the City of Tempe, City of Phoenix, and police forces valleywide. There is no excuse for pointing an AR-15 in the face of a non-violent offender.”

Shomer added in further posts that he spent a night at Maricopa County’s Fourth Avenue Jail following more than five hours in Tempe police custody, during which time he was giving “nothing to eat.”

He wrote that he was “told I wouldn’t receive medical attention after requesting it, even though it was posted on the wall to ask if desired. I was having a panic attack, cause they put a fucking assault rifle in my face (that’s illegal, both denying medical attn, and excessive force).”

Shomer also wrote in his post-arrest screed, “For the record, I hate the institution of the police. But, I do not think every single cop is a bastard. To say they all are, is imo, stooping to their level of profiling. Some of the detectives I met seemed to be genuine penis man fans.”