The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office is seeking a permanent injunction against the Metro Transit Assassins tagging crew, also known as MTA, which authorities allege is one of the most prolific and destructive graffiti tagging crews in the city.

The injunction would severely restrict the criminal activities of the group, and 10 of its known adult members.

Last week, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied challenges to the injunction put forth by the defense, but postponed granting the city’s request for a permanent injunction.

The Los Angeles City Attorney’s office filed a complaint last June seeking the injunction, and modeled it after civil gang injunctions predominantly used for street gangs.

Unlike previous civil gang injunctions, the city attorney’s lawsuit targets the tagging crew and its members throughout the state.

The injunction seeks to prohibit MTA members from associating with each other and possessing graffiti tools, and imposes a mandatory curfew on members.

The lawsuit seeks $1.25 million in penalties, and $3.7 million in damages for the tagging crew’s 500 documented incidents of graffiti vandalism, including the vandalizing of a quarter-mile long wall in the Los Angeles riverbed.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Transit Service Bureau, Special Problems Unit has partnered with the City Attorney’s Office in formulating the information necessary for the injunction.

A status conference on the injunction is scheduled for June 28 in Department 49 of the Los Angeles Superior Court.