{"id":212388,"date":"2026-04-28T09:25:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T09:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/212388\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T09:25:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T09:25:54","slug":"how-the-nypd-slow-walked-and-shot-down-gang-database-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/212388\/","title":{"rendered":"How the NYPD Slow-Walked and Shot Down Gang Database Reforms"},"content":{"rendered":"

At a recent press conference announcing a sweeping takedown of rival gangs notorious for their wild shootouts across public housing in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch<\/a> made the unsolicited point of praising the NYPD\u2019s controversial gang database.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes we certainly did use the criminal group database as part of this investigation,\u201d Tisch said, using the department\u2019s more ambiguous name for the gang list. Asserting that 60% of all shootings in the city have some nexus to gangs or crews, she said the database \u201cremains a valuable tool in our efforts to keep New Yorkers safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The police commissioner\u2019s enthusiastic support stands in contrast to her boss\u2019s feelings: as a candidate, Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> repeatedly called for terminating the database entirely, embracing the contention promoted by some criminal justice reform advocates that it targets Black and Hispanic teens and young men.<\/p>\n

The mayor recently backed off from his call to pull the plug and now insists the database must be reformed.<\/p>\n

While a blueprint for fixing the gang database has been around for years, an analysis by THE CITY found that the NYPD stiff-armed or slow-walked nearly a dozen reforms recommended by the city\u2019s ethics watchdog to address allegations of racial bias.<\/p>\n

\"NYPDNYPD and the Brooklyn District Attorney showed video of an alleged gang shooting in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Credit: Screengrab via Security Footage<\/p>\n

The database is perhaps the most high profile of several areas where Mamdani and Tisch have dramatically different perspectives<\/a>. In the past he\u2019s vowed to end a crackdown on lower level quality of life crimes and to eliminate a unit known as the Strategic Response Group that\u2019s been criticized for heavy-handed tactics during protests. Tisch supports both.<\/p>\n

In two reports since 2023, the city Department of Investigation suggested 30 reforms aimed at ensuring that people aren\u2019t placed in the gang database without sufficient reason and aren\u2019t kept there when there\u2019s no evidence of continuing gang affiliation.<\/p>\n

First DOI recommended that cops provide a clearer explanation of the evidence they use to justify placing someone in the database, a process known as \u201cactivation.\u201d And they suggested creating a system to continually review the police justifications and a process for individuals or their parents to appeal inclusion.<\/p>\n

\"NYCHA\u2019sNYCHA\u2019s Van Dyke Houses sit in the middle of Brownsville, Brooklyn, April 23, 2026. Credit: Alex Krales\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

While the NYPD adopted some of DOI\u2019s recommendations, with the implementation of several still pending, the department at one point rejected five outright, including the appeals protocol and changes to how often justifications are reviewed and who gets to review them.<\/p>\n

NYPD spokesperson Erika Tannor said the department \u201ccontinues to work on this and has made very meaningful progress, which DOI itself has unequivocally acknowledged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Tisch has consistently championed the database, calling it a critical weapon to reduce gun crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we have a shooting in the city, we use the gang database to anticipate where we may see retaliatory violence, and that has helped drive our gun violence down,\u201d she said at a Jan. 6 press conference with Mamdani standing next to her.<\/p>\n

A key aspect of that effort is tracking the conversations taking place on social media that document gang beatings and sometimes describe in specific detail a gang\u2019s plan to seek revenge when a member is beaten or shot by a rival.<\/p>\n

That was the case with the takedown of two Brownsville gangs Tisch and Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez announced<\/a> April 15, when they unsealed indictments against 36 defendants ranging in age from 16 to 27 alleging felonies from murder to weapons possession.<\/p>\n

The Brownsville investigation targeted a gang called WOOO and another called CHOO who for the last three years, prosecutors say, have engaged in a chaotic shooting war around several New York City Housing Authority developments. The grim score to date is 11 victims \u2014 including one homicide.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe NYPD placed floodlights in a Brownsville park after a shooting, Aug. 9, 2019. Credit: Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

These battles created chaos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The DA played security video showing a 69-year-old man taking out his trash who was wounded when gunfire erupted. Another video showed children ducking and running as gang members opened fire across a playground. A cell phone video posted on social media depicted gang members beating up a rival in a plaza near Metrotech Center in downtown Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is life,\u201d the poster is heard saying as the video captures his rival beaten and prostrate on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n

Tisch noted that, \u201cOf the 36 defendants, every single one of them was entered into that database.\u201d<\/p>\n

How It Works<\/p>\n

The database consists of people \u2014 nearly all of them Black or Hispanic teenagers or young men \u2014 identified by law enforcement as gang members. The criteria to justify \u201cactivation\u201d includes an subject \u201cself-admitting\u201d gang membership on social media or openly to police. Or, during an investigation, the individual is identified by two independent and reliable sources as a gang member.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Until recently the department also factored in if the subject frequented \u201cknown gang locations,\u201d flashed alleged gang hand signs or displayed gang-affiliated tattoos on social media.<\/p>\n

David Sarni, a retired NYPD detective who is now an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, described the database as a \u201ctool that can help define motivations and relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NYPD says monitoring social media chatter is particularly useful in identifying possible planned retaliation and ratcheting up police oversight of gang members making specific threats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople walk through Brownsville, Brooklyn on an early fall day, Oct. 10, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

As Michael Gerber, the deputy commissioner for legal matters, put it during a City Council<\/a> hearing last year, \u201cIf we know from the database that a shooting victim is a gang member, the identities of rival gang members, and where those gangs are based, we can immediately deploy officers in a way that will help prevent retaliatory shootings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarni noted \u201cactivation\u201d required at least two independent sources, and said the activation was supposed to be reviewed regularly to ensure there is evidence of ongoing gang affiliation. Individuals can then either be \u201crenewed\u201d or \u201cdeactivated\u201d \u2014 that is, taken off the list.<\/p>\n

For several years, cops could also see the names of people who had been \u201cde-activated\u201d but, Sarni said, \u201cThey stopped that. We don\u2019t keep a person in the system for 50 years.\u201d That modification was in response to DOI\u2019s critiques.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Tisch has asserted that information about gang affiliation stored in the database is not used to determine whether there is probable cause to arrest a person. It mainly helps detectives \u201cdetermine who is involved and where retaliation is most likely to occur,\u201d she has said.<\/p>\n

While campaigning last year Mamdani had a very different view, labeling it a \u201cvast dragnet of New Yorkers on the basis of whether they go out late, the photos they put on social media, so much of the facts of life of being a young New Yorker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tattoos and Parades<\/p>\n

Last spring the Legal Aid Society and the NAACP filed suit<\/a> in Brooklyn federal court calling the database racist and alleging it violates free speech, due process and equal protection sections of the Bill of Rights. In December a judge denied the city\u2019s motion to toss the suit but also rejected the plaintiff\u2019s motion to declare it class action litigation on behalf of anyone placed in the database, limiting it to three men named as lead plaintiffs.<\/p>\n

The suit alleges that 99% of those placed on the list are Black or Hispanic. And it says that mere placement in the database can be used as justification to stop and question people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reviewing internal documents that detectives must fill out when proposing an individual for inclusion, Legal Aid said that cops have cited everything from \u201cMexican tattoos\u201d to what they described as \u201ccultural touchstones such as common gestures used by Black athletes\u201d or \u201cbeing present at the Puerto Rican Day parade.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past, the list has included children as young as 11, the lawsuit says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NYPDNYPD and Brooklyn District Attorney officials showed video of an alleged gang shooting next to a Brownsville, Brooklyn playground. Credit: Via Security Footage<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically youth behaviour,\u201d said Legal Aid staff attorney Rigodis Appling. \u201cYouth culture is youth culture. If this were a white suburb doing these things, they would not be put on a gang database.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Legal Aid Society, whose union urged Mamdani not to reappoint Tisch, says the database can\u2019t be fixed\u00a0 and that reforms the NYPD has claimed to have adopted are incremental and meaningless.<\/p>\n

The Department of Investigation\u2019s April 2023 and October 2025 reports on the database make clear the NYPD has moved slowly to adopt proposed fixes, rejecting some recommendations outright.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 2023 report submitted by NYPD Inspector General Jeanene Barrett to then-Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell<\/a> examined what evidence the NYPD used to justify placing 493 people on the list and found the nature and documentation of individuals \u201cself-admitting\u201d to gang membership \u201cvaried widely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Members of the GANGS coalition protest on July 27, 2021, outside the NYPD\u2019s inspector general\u2019s office in Lower Manhattan. Credit: Eileen Grench\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

DOI noted that some social media postings cited to justify \u201cactivation\u201d were \u201ccursory, conclusory and failed to include sufficient detail to support\u201d self-admission to a gang. Examples included cops relying on \u201ccertain emojis,\u201d or \u201cphotos of individuals in the company of known gang members without more detail.\u201d Some cops noted \u201csocial media content\u201d with zero information on the nature of the content.<\/p>\n

In 136 cases, cops \u201cactivated\u201d individuals based on what they described as \u201ctwo sources\u201d but did not always \u201cdocument the existence of two independent sources.\u201d The report found cops in some cases simply designated entire Housing Authority developments as a \u201cgang location.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NYPD under Commissioner Sewell agreed in principle to accept i11 recommendations, but rejected five outright, including drafting a written policy requiring all \u201cactivated\u201d entries be reviewed every 12 months for teens under 18 and every 18 months for adults. The department said a review every two years for teens and every three years for adults was sufficient.<\/p>\n

The NYPD also rejected DOI\u2019s suggestion to create a panel to review all activations, and shot down a suggestion to create an appeals process for parents if their teens have no law enforcement contact for a year, contending it could compromise investigations and endanger informants.<\/p>\n

The department at first rejected DOI\u2019s request to let individuals file a public records request to see if they\u2019re on the list, but relented after the Legal Aid Society threatened legal action.<\/p>\n

In a second review in October the inspector general found the NYPD had not fully adopted five of its recommendations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DOI noted, for example, that while the NYPD had initiated review of \u201cactivation,\u201d there was still no supervisory oversight of renewals and deactivations. Last week the NYPD told THE CITY it is working on fixing this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While DOI recommended cops provide a detailed narrative explaining the justification for putting someone in the database, DOI found police continued to use \u201cboilerplate language\u201d to describe the source\u2019s \u201creasonable belief\u201d that the subject was a gang member.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, NYPD spokesperson Tannor said, \u201cDepartment policy has been updated to require that an individual\u2019s reasonable belief must be supported by substantive explanations that the individual is a member of a criminal group.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have previously acknowledged that our process for making juvenile notifications was deficient,\u201d Tannor said. \u201cWe are working to fix that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NYPDNYPD officers guard a crime scene in Greenwich Village, Jan. 9, 2026. Credit: Alex Krales\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

DOI also noted that sealed arrests aren\u2019t supposed to be used to justify placement in the database, but found NYPD was still listing the top charge of sealed arrests in complaints to justify \u201cactivation.\u201d This policy \u201cis being updated,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n

In its October report, DOI made 13 new recommendations, and in January NYPD agreed to accept all \u201cin principle.\u201d The NYPD said they should be in place by July.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In February, nearly three years after DOI\u2019s first report, the NYPD issued the biggest change to its gang database, embracing new protocols<\/a> that eliminated many of the criteria cops had been using to justify \u201cactivation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The department says it no longer uses categories such as \u201cfrequent presence at a known criminal group location\u201d or \u201cassociation with known criminal group members.\u201d Scars and tattoos \u201cassociated with a particular criminal group\u201d are no longer enough, nor is \u201cfrequent wearing of the colors\u201d and \u201cfrequent use of hand signs associated with particular criminal groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

And they note that the number of people in the database has dropped from 18,000 in 2019 to its current 7,700 \u2014 a 58% drop. The number of juveniles also fell from 440 to 209.<\/p>\n

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