New York City leftists want to ban an anti-gang tool under Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani despite increased threats.
A city council bill would abolish the police’s “Criminal Group Database” that has documented alleged gang activity since 2013, the latest in a line of equivalent bills introduced over the past five years. Mamdani pivoted from supporting the database’s abolition in September to telling reporters on Monday that he is in “active” talks with the New York Police Department (NYPD) about reforming the tool.
Gang membership is at an all-time high in New York City, creating a link between gang activity and 65% of the city’s shootings, law enforcement officials told FOX5 in September. The Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has also been active in the city since at least 2023 after former President Joe Biden’s border policies allowed a drastic increase in illegal Venezuelan immigrants. The gang has been linked to a variety of crimes such as sex trafficking of women and children, kidnapping, torture and drug smuggling.
However, the far-left factions that helped elect Mamdani consider the Criminal Group Database racist and want to keep it from being a resource for immigration agents to track migrants. Banning it would remove a tool the NYPD says is crucial at a time of heightened danger.
The NYPD tied a local gang rivalry to an April 1 shooting that killed a seven-month-old baby in her stroller with a stray bullet in Brooklyn, local outlet PIX11 reported. The 21-year-old suspect and an accomplice allegedly arrived on a moped and shot at the girl’s father, instead hitting her in the head and grazing a two-year-old’s body.
“Eliminating the gang database removes a key intelligence tool used to track and connect organized criminal networks, which can reduce visibility into gang activity,” American Border Story Executive Director Nicole Kiprilov told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Scrapping the data would be a favor to transnational gangs such as Tren de Aragua and MS-13, according to Kiprilov, whose group investigates the effects of illegal immigration.
“This proposal would put New [Yorkers’] lives at risk,” a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson told the DCNF. “We need cooperation with state and local law enforcement to remove criminals including violent gang members the Biden administration allowed to pour into our country.”
Mamdani’s office did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment. The socialist has left the database’s fate uncertain despite previously endorsing a ban.
“The vast dragnet has meant the inclusion of New Yorkers on the basis of whether they go out late, photos they put on social media, so much of the facts of life of being a young New Yorker,” he said in September, local outlet Vital City reported. “And yet it then becomes a mark of suspicion.”
‘Lawfully Obtained Information’
Police log someone in the gang database if they show “personal acknowledgement” of gang membership or if police have “a reasonable belief” that they belong to a gang, according to a February NYPD report. That belief must be based on “two independent and reliable sources, not including the nominating officer.”
The NYPD data are “not grounds for a stop, arrest, or any other enforcement action” and do not appear in someone’s arrest record, the report says. The data is “lawfully obtained information previously collected by NYPD personnel” that would otherwise be scattered throughout other NYPD databases, according to the report.
New York City’s Department of Investigation praised the NYPD in October for making “substantial improvements” to the database to respect civil liberties. Those included notifying parents when minors are added and clarifying what evidence is sufficient to show someone’s gang affiliation.
The city council’s abolition bill currently has 19 lawmakers co-sponsoring out of 51. The 88% Democrat-controlled council functions much like the U.S. Congress, with the mayor having veto power. Legislators could override a Mamdani veto with a two-thirds vote to pass the ban.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch bragged about the database in a September interview, with no response from Mamdani at the time. “We know who the [gang members] are and are going after them,” she said, according to The New York Post.
Mamdani’s predecessor, Democrat Eric Adams, said banning the database is too “idealistic” in February 2025, the New York Post reported. Those calling it racist fail to recognize that most shooting victims in the city are black or Latino, he said. “Let’s keep them in mind,” he added.
Crime With No Borders
The DOJ filed several cases in New York City or Long Island targeting transnational criminal groups such as Tren de Aragua since President Donald Trump took office.
Trump promised to crack down on the Venezuelan gang during his reelection campaign after reports emerged of members violently taking over Colorado apartments. Biden’s immigration policies allowed an unknown number of Tren de Aragua associates to illegally enter the country, the DCNF previously reported.
The DOJ thanked the NYPD and other police departments in December for their assistance in investigating Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, an alleged Tren de Aragua leader currently on the run from authorities. The DOJ alleged in New York court that he partnered with Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro’s regime to flood American streets with drugs.
“Partnerships with law enforcement are critical to having the resources we need to arrest criminal illegal aliens across the country,” the DHS spokesperson told the DCNF. The agency highlighted four ICE arrests in New York City of alleged Tren de Aragua, MS-13 and Latin Kings gangbangers in recent months.
Trump’s mass deportation efforts cannot save local communities from the left’s pro-illegal immigrant agenda if it wins in New York and expands, Kiprilov told the DCNF.
“When it comes to immigration specifically, Trump has done a lot, but ultimately states and counties/local jurisdictions must follow suit if we want to see real reform,” she said.
The police database debate is an example of how Mamdani’s election removed one of the only firm backstops to the city’s far left, Kiprilov said.
“Eric Adams actually pushed back on a lot of this extremism … and that’s ultimately one reason why the radical part of his party pushed him out,” Kiprilov told the DCNF.
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