Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, Santa Rosa police pull out of California gang database

Sonoma County’s two largest law enforcement agencies have stopped using a controversial statewide gang database criticized in a state audit that concluded it was riddled with old, unverified and inaccurate information, causing some people to be improperly identified as gang members.

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office purged its records from the CalGang Criminal Intelligence System and ended its role as administrator of the database for about 30 other California counties as of Jan. 1, said Sheriff’s Sgt. Spencer Crum, a spokesman for the agency.

In December, the Santa Rosa Police Department removed its records from the database and stopped using it as a tool to track gang members, said police Sgt. Tommy Isachsen, who runs the city’s gang investigations team.

Both agencies said new laws that require law enforcement to notify people when they’re entered into the database and allow them to appeal the listing make the system too cumbersome to use.

“We still continue to believe it’s a viable tool, and it’s unfortunate we’re unable to use it,” Crum said.

The move was applauded by lawyers and advocates who said the state audit - which focused on the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, because of its administrator role, and three other agencies - uncovered problems with CalGang long known by those trying to defend people named in the system.

“I’m glad Sonoma County put CalGang to rest,” Sonoma County Public Defender Kathleen Pozzi said. “The reality is there were many people in there who were gang members, but it netted so many innocent people that had nothing to do with what a true gang is.”

Immigrant advocates have said that simply being named in the database makes it difficult to fight deportation.

“It’s great to see recognition that this database, which can be highly prejudicial, was not adequately maintained and corrections are being made,” said Richard Coshnear, a local immigration attorney who runs an advocacy group for undocumented immigrants. Local law enforcement officials continued to defend the program but said they don’t have the staff available to manage new requirements, including handling an appeals process for people who want their names removed.

The CalGang program was created about two decades ago as a tool for law enforcement agencies across the state to share information about known and suspected gang members or affiliated people. Law enforcement officers could search by name or criteria like tattoos.

By November 2015, there were records on more than 150,000 people in the CalGang system, including 1,965 people listed by Sonoma County law enforcement agencies. Of those, 68 percent were listed as gang members and 32 percent were affiliates.

The Sheriff’s Office used it broadly, and included information about suspected behavior and connections that might help investigators follow leads as well as confirmed gang involvement.

Santa Rosa has for years limited its entries to people convicted of crimes that resulted in court-ordered gang registration, Isachsen said. The database was mainly useful to research people with law enforcement contacts or arrests elsewhere in the state, he said.

“I can personally attest to using CalGang to solve violent criminal assaults and robberies based on other law enforcement agency information,” Isachsen said.

Critics of the program said information in the database was incorrectly used as evidence of gang membership in some court cases and immigration proceedings, rather than merely an investigative tool. In August, State Auditor Elaine Howle released a 109-page report criticizing the way police agencies were administering the CalGang database. The report called out Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas’ office as not accepting “a fair and honest critique of its current processes” for entering and managing the data.

Jerry Threet, director of the county’s Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach, said his primary concern about the program was its potential implications for people fighting deportation.

“In some instances, investigations into gang activity may last longer or not be as easy as it might have been (with the database),” Threet said. “But on balance, due to the possibility of inaccuracies, I think it is a good thing (the program is no longer used).”