PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - A youth advocacy group is alleging that the use of a database to identify suspected gang members by Providence police and members of Mayor Jorge Elorza’s administration violates the First Amendment.
The Providence Youth Student Movement filed a lawsuit Tuesday over the department’s “intelligence assessment database.” The group says the database also violates aspects of the city’s Community-Police Relations Act, which was passed in 2017.
The complaint says the policy violates the ordinance because it does not prevent people from being classified as gang members based on association with other gang members.
Vanessa Flores-Maldonado, a member of the group, says their concern is the database “further supporting and enabling racial profiling.”
The existence of the database has long been a point of contention between community members and police.
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