A picture puzzle from ... OZ

COULD NORTH PHILLY be the homeland of OZ?

Of course we're not talking about the Wonderful Wizard from the movie classic. We're talking about "OZ," the prolific and pesky graffiti vandal who has scrawled his "tag" on structures all over Philadelphia for more than 20 years, costing the city thousands of dollars to clean up.

So who is OZ - this person who prowls the city at night armed with an arsenal of aerosol cans?

OZ, much like the movie character, might turn out to be just an ordinary man. Like, say, a 37-year-old who works at a North Philly packaging plant and still lives with his parents in the Logan neighborhood. Perhaps a man named David Vernitsky who allegedly got beaten up by two cops after they caught him spray-painting on the wall of a beauty-supply store.

Vernitsky says "no." But those within the graffiti underground say "yes."

If so, Vernitsky now joins a list of unmasked "graff" outlaws who've left their indelible mark on Philadelphia's graffiti culture: Retired taggers like Darryl McCray, now 54, better known as "Cornbread," who gained notoriety for spray-painting a zoo elephant. Or Steve Powers, 40, now a New York artist, who for years wrote "ESPO" all over Philly and Manhattan.

Vernitsky may not end up immortalized as OZ. But like him or hate him, he will be remembered, some say.

"Forty years down the line, nobody will remember OZ, but they will remember, 'Yo, there was this one writer who got beat up by the cops and he didn't let the cops just beat him up. He fought back,' " said Dan Polanco, a self-described "alphabetical engineer," whose tag name is "Dan One."

Polanco added, "Even if you write something bad about him, you're still chronicling his story. You're recording the history of this movement."

In May, District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham filed criminal charges against Officers Sheldon Fitzgerald and Howard Hill III, accusing them of breaking Vernitsky's jaw and trying to cover up the August 2007 beating. The officers, both five-year veterans from the 25th District on Whitaker Avenue near Erie, have been suspended without pay.

Fitzgerald and Hill haven't commented publicly on the case, but John J. McNesby, president of Lodge 5 of the Fraternal Order of Police, has accused Vernitsky of fabricating the allegations against the two officers.

Fitzgerald and Hill were slated to appear in criminal court last week but a judge agreed to postpone the preliminary hearing until September to accommodate summer vacation schedules.

The day after Abraham charged Fitzgerald and Hill, the Daily News ran a photo of Vernitsky wearing a big grin and a T-shirt reading, "Hello, my name is OH-ZEE." The photo prompted readers to call and e-mail to say they believe Vernitsky is the notorious OZ.

"I'm not that person," Vernitsky said in a recent telephone interview. "I know who that person is, but I can't reveal that."

So what's with the T-shirt?

Vernitsky explained that he's a big fan of "The Wizard of Oz" and a friend gave him the shirt for his birthday a few years ago as a joke.

Old graffiti hands who grew up with Vernitsky in North Philly weren't buying his story, however.

"They used to call him 'White Boy Dave,' " said Troy Little, 36, a former graffiti writer who went to high school with Vernitsky and claimed to see him at spray-painting parties held inside abandoned buildings around the city.

Little, a building services employee at Philadelphia Media Holdings, which owns the Daily News and Inquirer, said he laughed when he read Vernitsky's shirt.

"It was the ultimate thumbing your nose at the police," Little said. "It was like, 'Ha, ha, ha, I got two cops off the street and I'm admitting I'm OZ and look at this big cheesy smile on my face. I got the reputation that I never had when I was young - instantly.' "

The beauty supply store at the corner of 4th Street and Wyoming Avenue is a favorite target of graffiti vandals. The building gets hit at least three times a week and store owners Jane and K.C. Kim say they get tired of repainting the red brick facade.

On Aug. 26, 2007, at about 12:30 a.m., Vernitsky, then 36, began to spray-paint a congratulatory message to a newlywed couple on the store's side wall, while two of his friends acted as lookouts. Hill and Fitzgerald allegedly jumped out of their squad car and chased Vernitsky. The officers beat him up, then let him go, according to authorities.

Vernitsky's friends took him to Albert Einstein Medical Center, where he underwent surgery to repair a broken jaw, which was wired shut for five weeks.

"The police are not right, but he's 36 years old - why he spray?" K.C. Kim said recently. "He's not a kid. It's baby[ish]."

On Oct. 20, 2007, at about 3 a.m. - just two months after the alleged police beating - two other officers spotted Vernitsky perched on a ledge of a building at Germantown Avenue, near Master Street, with a can of Rust-Oleum Enamel spray paint in his hand, according to a police report.

The officers arrested Vernitsky for vandalism. In February, a judge found him guilty of criminal mischief, a summary offense, and fined him $300.

Court records show police previously arrested Vernitsky in October 2006 for criminal mischief, though the details of the incident were unavailable. In that case, a judge gave him 25 hours of community service, records show.

OZ's handiwork has been a perennial pain in the city's butt, particularly on properties along the city's Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated Line, said anti-graffiti officials.

"We know [OZ] very well here," said Jerry Eley, field director of operations for the city's graffiti-abatement program. "He has cost the city thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars - no doubt in my mind."

Eley said he didn't know for sure whether Vernitsky and OZ are one and the same, though he has his suspicions.

The city spends roughly $1.3 million each year to power-wash or paint over the scribbles of OZ and others. The taxpayer-funded tab does not include the $100,000 spent yearly to clean up graffiti in Philadelphia's Center City District, or the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by SEPTA and the U.S. Postal Service.

Graffiti-busters like Eley bristle at the notion that Vernitsky might file a civil lawsuit against the city and potentially win thousands of dollars in a case against the Police Department. To date, Vernitsky has not filed a lawsuit, and he has said he doesn't know if he will bring suit.

Eley characterizes graffiti as an "offensive," "horrific," and "criminal" act that attracts crime to neighborhoods and reduces property values.

Others call graffiti an urban art form, the written companion to modern hip-hop music.

Dan Polanco, or Dan One, said graffiti is about freedom, rebellion, and challenging rules. For artists with few resources, graffiti is a means of being heard, Polanco said.

Polanco said he knows Vernitsky personally. He knows him as OZ, he said.

"It's a shame that all this had to happen to draw attention to OZ," Polanco said. "He's very talented. I've seen stuff by him that is fresh, like excellent."

Anyone who believes Vernitsky deserved to get beaten up is wrong, Polanco said.

"I don't care who it is - OZ or anybody else - nobody should get beat up by police. That is called brute force," Polanco said. "If it's about brute force, then we shouldn't have any laws. Police talk about law and order, then why are they beating people up?" *