Soft-on-crime city council members want to eliminate the NYPD’s gang database, despite a surge in gang-affiliated immigrants entering New York.
The database, which has been in operation since 2013 and contains thousands of entries and information, including distinctive tattoos, is considered a key crime-fighting tool by the NYPD in its fight against criminal groups and street gangs.
But left-leaning city politicians are once again trying to push a bill to eliminate the NYPD’s criminal gang database, arguing that the “secret” database demonizes minorities.
South Bronx Councilwoman Althea Stevens reintroduced the bill, originally pushed in 2022 by his East Village colleague, Councilwoman Carlina Rivera.the bill died in committee.
Stevens argued that the database holds “black and brown” youth to “unclear criteria” and implicates too many “innocent people.” “I believe we need to avoid labeling young people and the further stigma that these labels bring,” she said.
Law enforcement experts and the New York Police Department slammed the law as wrongheaded.
“This is becoming even more valuable than it was before,” argues Michael Alcazar, a former NYPD detective and professor at John Jay College of Criminology. “We have a lot of immigrants now. … They don’t have birth certificates or passports, so we have to really tap into databases to gather information like photos, tattoos, scars, gang affiliations.”
Castro Mata recognises him as a member of the Tren de Aragua
gang.
The bill “takes a page from the same book” that brought about bail reform in the city, he said. “They [City Council] “We believe these databases are targeting a specific segment of the population. They’re targeting the criminal segment.”
Alcazar’s John Jay colleague, former NYPD sergeant Joseph Giacalone, agreed.
“As NYPD officers are targeted by recently arrived Venezuelan gang members, some City Council members continue to insist on erasing the gang database. Think twice,” he said. “They’d rather see their officers shot on the streets and New Yorkers robbed at shocking rates than use common sense.”
Giacalone was referring to a 19-year-old Venezuelan immigrant who is accused of wounding two NYPD officers during a wild chase through the streets of Queens last month.
Prosecutors said Bernardo Raul Castro Mata, an admitted member of the notorious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, shot one officer in the chest at “close range.”
“I don’t know what the New York City Council thinks it is,” said former NYPD Inspector John Macari. “Gang members come to America to commit crimes. This is the worst possible time to push this bill that is anti-police and pro-criminals.”
The NYPD told The Post that calls to scrap the department’s criminal gang database were “misguided.”
The New York Police Department said the database is a critical tool in fighting gang violence.
“Police need to understand the size of these crime groups, their reach, their members and the crimes they commit. This is information the database provides, and it would be irresponsible for the NYPD not to understand these groups,” the department said, noting a “regrettable pattern” between shootings and gang ties.
In New York City, a significant percentage of shootings
It has to do with gang activity.” New York Police Department
The NYPD added that the database “has a strict and transparent set of rules and standards, undergoes multiple levels of review and is subject to audits to remove individuals who have removed themselves from gang activity.”
The bureau’s five-year investigation, which began in 2018, found “no evidence of harm” against people with suspected gang ties.
The NYPD declined to say how many people or gangs are currently in the database, or whether it includes immigrant gang members.
As of December 2022, there were 16,141 people in the database, according to the latest statistics released by the New York City Police Department’s Inspector General for Investigations.
Stevens’ bill has been introduced in the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee.
