The letters were scrawled along the building with spray paint.Measuring nearly six feet tall, they were clearly identifiable to anybody passing by the relatively-busy intersection.Ironically, they were plastered on the wall of a complex being used to offer youth an alternative to the street activities and criminality that at one time plagued the neighborhood that’s home to the church that hosts the program. It was just one of many public and private properties hit this past week by vandals armed with spray paint cans.Taggers – those that deface private property for the sake of developing a reputation or spreading an alias that exists on the canvas that they see fit – are getting bolder.And given the quick in-and-out nature of their crime, it’s often a cat-and-mouse game between patrol officers responding to calls by observant neighbors or concerned citizens and shifty vandals that spend very little time in the same place.According to Manteca Police Department Sergeant Jodie Estarziau, any recent rise in the number of spray paint vandals coincides with an ongoing trend. Taggers, she said, will periodically hit public places – like the west-facing wall of the F.U.N. Club building the corner of Fremont Street and Yosemite Avenue – before a beefed up police presence or fed-up business owners take away the element of surprise.Those that do it for recognition, she said, differ from the gang tags that appear in areas where rivals groups may be warring.