Police in Tempe say they’ve lastly arrested a person behind a wave of “Penis Man” graffiti that has cropped up throughout town, years after one other vandal with the identical calling card warned there have been “more Penis Men out there.”
Authorities introduced Thursday (Sept. 25) that 36-year-old Tanner Ballengee was taken into custody in Phoenix following a months-long investigation. Police say Ballengee admitted to spraying the phrases “Penis Man” in a minimum of two circumstances close to Rural Road and Apache Boulevard in July and August 2025.
According to a division assertion, officers have fielded “multiple reports of the phrase ‘Penis Man’ spray-painted on buildings in Tempe” in current months. However, most of the incidents weren’t caught on surveillance cameras.
“Graffiti is not a harmless act — it costs property owners money, hurts local businesses, and affects the look and feel of our neighborhoods,” the Tempe Police Department mentioned.
Ballengee now faces two counts of legal harm.
The arrest comes greater than 4 years after a distinct “Penis Man” case made headlines. In 2020, a Tempe man named Dustin Shomer was arrested and accused of tagging the identical phrase.
Shomer, who known as the incident a “cop overreach,” later claimed he wasn’t the one one accountable, telling reporters on the time“I’m not the original. There’s a whole Penis Man army out there.”