NYPD Defends Database of Suspected Gang Members

The New York Police Department sent detectives to a City Council meeting on Wednesday to deliver a message to the governing body that the database they use to keep track of gang members is essential in keeping gang violence tamped down.

According to a report by the New York Post , the detectives used three videos to demonstrate “the mayhem gangs can inflict on this city.”

“We show these three to really illustrate a picture is worth a thousand words,” Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said. “This is the reality of what we see and what we strive to combat with our precision policing techniques.”

Detectives said that “90 percent of the people in the database have been arrested for at least one felony and 50 percent have been arrested for at least one robbery,” according to The Post.