NYC officials credit gang database in East Harlem murder conspiracy bust

Police are crediting a much-criticized gang database for helping prosecutors indict 16 people allegedly responsible for half of the shootings in East Harlem last summer.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said two rival groups known as “LA World” and “Wuski” — based out of NYCHA’s Lehman and Johnson Houses, along with another housing development known as A.K. Houses — were engaged in months of retributive violence over drug territory, with little regard for bystanders.

Thirteen of the 16 defendants are minors. All are charged in a sweeping murder conspiracy, with 108 total counts tied to 21 separate shootings between March and September of last year.

Officials said they recovered 15 firearms over the course of the investigation.

“Bullets flying everywhere, on crowded street corners, near innocent bystanders at playgrounds near children,” Bragg said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said detectives used the NYPD’s gang database — which the City Council has been seeking to abolish — to identify suspects, along with DNA collected from minors who had not been arrested.

Critics have said the gang database amounts to racial profiling, disproportionately targeting people of color based on factors like music taste and social ties rather than concrete evidence of criminal activity. Opponents also argued it's opaque, lacks due process and does little to actually improve public safety.

“ Calls to get rid of this tool are dangerous; they fly in the face of public safety,” she said. “When we talk about precision policing, this is it.”

Officials provided details about the scope of what they call the  NYPD's Criminal Group database.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said the list comprises 13,404 people, including 507 “gangs and crews.” He said the NYPD has strict criteria for who can be included in the database.

“ You have to either self-admit, we identify you through social media or through law enforcement,” Kenny said. “We just can't add people into the database because we want to.”

Kenny did not say what qualifies as gang affiliation through social media or law enforcement.

Tisch said the database was used to identify gang membership of those indicted and their rivalries.

Several of those charged with the shootings and conspiracy charges pleaded not guilty. Not all of their lawyers returned phone calls seeking comment.

The youngest was 15 at the time of the shootings, officials said.

This story has been updated with new information.