GangNet, a database designed to help police track and identify criminal gang members, was once used by dozens of police agencies in D.C., Virginia and Maryland.
But according to Jeff Beeson, executive director of the Baltimore Washington High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, the database was “decommissioned” as of Jan. 29, 2025.
“The decision was made earlier in 2024 as the result of increased cost and decreased usage,” Beeson explained.
The database, and the identification of people as suspected gang members based on things like where they lived and who they talked to, led to a lawsuit accusing Prince George’s County of “illegal mass surveillance.” That lawsuit was filed by The Chicago Justice Project and cites a 2020 investigation by NBC Washington that identified nearly 8,000 people in the D.C. region being tracked for suspected gang affiliation.
“Ultimately, Prince George’s County discontinued inputting information into GangNet,” Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy told WTOP.
But, she said, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident who was deported to El Salvador for his alleged ties to the MS-13 gang, was present in GangNet when he was initially accused of gang affiliation by police officer Ivan Mendez. Mendez’s report is now the primary piece of evidence being used by President Donald Trump’s administration to justify his deportation last month.
But it is still unclear whether Abrego Garcia was listed in GangNet as a gang member or if his presence in the database contributed to Mendez’s decision to identify him with other MS-13 members in his 2019 report.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyer contends that he has no affiliation with MS-13.
Within a month of writing that report, Mendez was suspended in April 2019 for providing information to a commercial sex worker, whom he was paying in exchange for sexual acts. He was later fired.
Braveboy said while it’s important for police and prosecutors to go after gang-related crime, “it is also not a crime to be in a gang. It is a crime to commit offenses.”
Being identified as a gang member in a database, she continued, “does not automatically mean that they are a verified gang member or that they were absolutely involved in a crime.”
Abrego Garcia has never been charged or convicted of a crime, though he did enter the country illegally as a minor in 2011.
WTOP’s Kay Perkins contributed to this report.
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