LAPD Seeks to Join Gang Database : Police: The computer system, operated by L.A. County, has drawn criticism from civil libertarians.

The Los Angeles Police Department is seeking city permission to join a growing network of California police agencies that keep computerized files on alleged gang members, a system that civil libertarians say is potentially abusive of citizens who have never been convicted of crimes.

The LAPD has been awarded a $100,000 state grant to buy software and computers needed to connect with a computer system that stores the names, nicknames, addresses, friends and photographs of thousands of suspected gang members throughout Los Angeles County.

Gang experts say such details are crucial in investigating gang-related crimes, and they have hailed the Gang Reporting, Evaluation and Tracking database, operated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, as one of their most effective tools.

Once the LAPD has access to the database, “we’ll notice crime clearance rates going up,” said LAPD Detective Chuck Zeglin of the department’s gang information section. “It will allow us to investigate gang crimes quicker, better and easier.”

Currently, LAPD officers must call the Sheriff’s Department to get information from the system, which holds files on an estimated 140,000 gang members in Los Angeles County. If the Los Angeles City Council agrees to accept the state grant, police will be able to call up the files with their own computers by midsummer.

As a result, an LAPD officer in the Pacfic Division would be able to quickly get information on a suspected gang member who committed a crime in Venice but lives in Long Beach.

However, the program’s rapid spread in recent years throughout California, Nevada and Hawaii has alarmed civil libertarians. They say they are concerned that information stored in the computer file system may be misused--for example, released to employers or school officials.

Law enforcement agencies throughout California and Nevada hope to integrate seven regional data systems, including the one established in Los Angeles County, into a single anti-gang system by the end of the year.

State officials estimate that there are about 148 agencies connected to the database system in Nevada and California. Eventually, police say, they hope to expand the system nationwide.

Edward Chen, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said he is troubled by that scenario.

“The piece of information we’re really trying to get are the consequences of being in the system,” Chen said. “We want to know if anybody suffers some kind of punishment or disability as a result” of being listed in the database. After all, civil libertarians say, being a gang member, or an associate of gang members, is not a crime.

Chen said his organization has teamed up with its Southern California office to answer the question. The ACLU has sent out letters asking law enforcement agencies how they decide who is a gang member and who can gain access to the information.

Authorities say those in the computer system have not necessarily been convicted of a crime or even arrested. Some are included on the basis of appearance, including clothing and tattoos.

And others have been identified through “field interrogations,” interviews conducted with people who are stopped by police but not arrested.

Allan Parachini, a spokesman for the ACLU of Southern California, said his group is also trying to learn more about the nonprofit organization that was established to distribute the software and whose board of directors consists of police chiefs from around the state.

“We have some concerns about whether law enforcement powers that should only be exercised by a government public safety agency should be ceded to a private company,” Parachini said.

The nonprofit group is the Law Enforcement Communication Network. According its director, Bob Foy, it was established in 1991 to distribute the database software to law enforcement agencies at a reasonable cost.

“We have very good security,” Foy said. “I’m sure we’re much more secure than 99% of all other databases.”