Washington Lawyers’ Committee Suggests Abolishing D.C. Police’s Gang Database

WASHINGTON -- A report last month from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs warns that D.C. police appear to be violating constitutional rights to privacy with their Gang Database.

Innocent persons could be placed on the list merely by associating with gang members and later be subjected to police searches that violate Fourth Amendment privacy rights, according to the public interest law firm.

The report also says the Gang Database is targeted too heavily toward Black and Latinx persons, perhaps violating their rights to equal protection that is supposed to be guaranteed by federal and local law.

“Gang databases provide a ready-made way to justify ongoing surveillance, harassment, and police abuse that are unlikely to elicit widespread public pushback because the people involved are labeled ‘known gang members,’” the report says. “The D.C. Gang Database criminalizes activities that are legal, like the gathering of two or more people in certain areas.”

The report was put together by a coalition of public interest groups led by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee based on data from 2022. The years-long effort required a lawsuit, multiple Freedom of Information Act requests and assistance from the D.C. Council to overcome refusals from local police, according to the Washington Lawyers’ Committee.

“The Metropolitan Police Department resisted each opportunity to display transparency,” the report says.

The police began compiling their Gang Database in 2009 to be proactive in pursuing persons most likely to commit violence and drug crimes. Membership on the list serves as the reasonable suspicion police sometimes use to stop and search potential criminal suspects.

The Washington Lawyers’ Committee says the method for getting put on the list sometimes lacks professional standards that would justify the listing. In addition, persons on the list often lack a means of being removed from it.

By Oct. 19, 2022, when the Washington Lawyers’ Committee gathered its data, the D.C. Gang Database contained 1,951 names of persons police identified as a “gang associate” or a “gang member,” the report says.

The listings are supposed to be based on eight objective criteria.

“However, nearly 75 percent of all individuals (1,202) in the database are associated with only two criteria: being ‘observed associating with gang members’ and being ‘observed attending gang meetings’ (98 percent interrelation),” the report says. “The use of weak, undefined inclusion criteria provides MPD officers with nearly uninhibited powers to place individuals in the database, thereby potentially subjecting them to extraordinary police action.”

The Washington Lawyers’ Committee recommended that the D.C. Council “pass legislation dismantling the D.C. Gang Database.”

The MPD declined to respond to the report because of ongoing litigation.

However, Chief Pamela A. Smith issued a statement saying, “Arguments, disputes, and retaliation drive homicides and shootings in the District of Columbia. Maintaining an awareness of the affiliations of the people likely to be involved in violence — either as perpetrators or victims — is a critical part of reducing crime in our city. The Metropolitan Police Department maintains a criminal gang database as an investigative tool. The identification of gangs, and the validation of specific individuals as gang members, are pivotal to supporting our criminal justice ecosystem and safeguarding our communities.”

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