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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Victor Dempsey, Community Organizer and Advocate, on NYPD's Gang Database
3:13:36
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Victor Dempsey, a community organizer and advocate, testified in support of abolishing the NYPD's gang database. He argued that the database disproportionately targets Black and Brown youth, lacks transparency and accountability, and fails to prevent crime or improve public safety.
- Dempsey emphasized that the database is reactive rather than preventative, with no evidence of it making communities safer.
- He highlighted the racial bias in the database, citing vague criteria and social associations used to add individuals.
- Dempsey called for the abolition of the database rather than reform, criticizing the NYPD's response to calls for transparency and accountability.
Victor Dempsey
3:13:36
Good afternoon.
3:13:37
My name is Victor Dempsey and I'm a community organizer, an advocate, and a concerned New Yorker urging the full abolition of NYPD's gang database.
3:13:46
I stand before you to act to end the system that disproportionately targets black and brown youth, criminalizes our communities, and perpetuates a cycle of harm under the guise of public safety.
3:13:56
I want to be clear this database is not preventative, it's reactive.
3:14:00
There has been no time since this database has been in existence where NYPD was able to come in and give testimony to preventing any measures of making us safe for community.
3:14:09
Over eight years ago, we sat in the same city council chambers and introduced the issues around the gang database when no one knew about it.
3:14:16
And since that time, we've seen time and time again where NYPD only responds to advocates cries for transparency, cries for accountability, and time and time again they come in and they give obscure numbers and act like that they're addressing the issues with it.
3:14:30
We have not seen those things be addressed.
3:14:33
Yes.
3:14:33
We know deal deal o I g released a report and they claim that they have again accepted their recommendations.
3:14:40
Accept their recommendations to abolish the database that's dishonorably racist.
3:14:45
The NYPD's gang database is a deeply flawed, racially biased tool that lacks transparency, due process, and oversight.
3:14:52
Thousands of young people predominantly black and brown are added to this list on vague criterias, social associations, or even the way they dress.
3:15:02
Again in the city council chamber, the previous public safety commissioner who sat here before, Donald Richards, he asked NYPD in the previous one, if I went and got a bacon, egg, and cheese and had on blue jeans and a white shirt on on the corner of Far Rockaway, would I be added to the database?
3:15:18
Then chief Dimashe said to him right in his face, yes you would be if you were associated.
3:15:23
I don't take lightly to NYPD continuously lying about their advocacy or what they say is a lack of advocacy for black and brown communities.
3:15:30
So I do appreciate the council today standing up for those communities that they serve themselves.
3:15:35
Intro July is a critical step in addressing these injustices but we must be clear the database should not be reformed.
3:15:41
It should be abolished.
3:15:43
The NYPD so called inactive list is proof of their continued lack of accountability.
3:15:48
And I think this is a big thing here today that they won't even themselves admit to having an active versus an inactive list.
3:15:54
So the numbers that we were given today, it also could be obscure, and we still have thousands and thousands of New Yorkers being surveilled every single day because we know because we are the advocates of New York.
3:16:04
Thank you again for your time.