Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Season 12 Episode 18
Aired on July 27, 2025
Main segment: Gang Databases
Other segments: The relationship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein as it relates to the Jeffrey Epstein client list, and the debut game of the Erie Moon Mammoths (the third followup to the Minor league baseball rebranding contest from Episode 330)
John Oliver discusses the massive problems caused by gang databases, how people wind up on them, and why nobody looks good in lime green. You might think you’re pulling it off but trust us, you’re not.
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♪ (“LAST WEEK TONIGHT” THEME MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
Our main story tonight concerns gangs, something Tampa police once warned teenagers about like this.
NARRATOR: Think it’s cool to be a baller, shot caller? Want to end up like this? Join a gang, and chances are you will. The choice is yours, so make the right choice. Open your eyes and wake up…
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
NARRATOR: …before it’s too late. Holy shit!
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Take it down a thousand notches! Because when you show a dead body pop up like a jack-in-the-box, you’re not implying joining a gang will kill you, you’re implying it’ll turn you into a flesh-eating zombie.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And if that is true, gangs are the least of your problems right now, Tampa. Gangs have long been a target of law enforcement, and this story concerns a commonly used tool police have developed to thwart them, gang databases. Basically, lists the police keep of people they say are involved in gangs. You might remember, earlier this year, the government used them as a justification to deport immigrants, most famously in the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, whose deportation they later admitted was a mistake. Before Trump doubled down on this Microsoft paint bullshit being actual evidence, he initially talked about the case like this. You’re talking about Ábrego García. Is that the one? Yeah? He’s an illegal alien, MS-13 gang member, and foreign terrorist. This comes out of the State Department and very legitimate sources. I mean, I assume. I’m reading. I’m just giving you what they handed to me, but this was supposed to be certified stuff. Oh, was it? Okay. Well, I’m glad it’s “certified stuff.” That’s reassuring.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
But you know you don’t always have to read what they hand you, right? If they handed you Mein Kampf, would you read it out loud? You know, I take that back.
That’s a terrible example.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
You wouldn’t just read it, you’d do a fun little riff on it in the briefing room. But it is worth talking about those legitimate sources, because one of the few pieces of evidence authorities have produced to support those MS-13 allegations is Ábrego García’s 2019 entry into something called GangNET, a regional gang database. Basically, back in 2019, cops apparently approached Ábrego García and three others at a Home Depot in Maryland, filled out a form identifying them as gang members, and submitted it to GangNET. Officers apparently observed “he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with rolls of money covering the eyes, ears, and mouth of the president,” saying they “know such clothing to be indicative of the Hispanic gang culture,” and that “wearing the Chicago Bulls hat represents they’re a member in good standing with MS-13,” which is…
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
…already a little bit weird, because it implies that somehow, if you’re not up to date on your monthly MS-13 dues, your Bulls hat privileges get revoked.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
The cop filling out that form also cited a past proven and reliable source of information who supposedly corroborated that Ábrego García was an “active member of MS-13.” Though you should know, that cop was suspended just a week later, pled guilty to misconduct on an unrelated issue, and was ultimately fired. Nevertheless, that gang allegation meant that Ábrego García was denied bond and spent months locked up in ICE detention. In fact, it later emerged that he’s the guy in this local news piece from 2020, speaking anonymously about his experience. I spoke with an immigrant who was looking for work outside of this Home Depot in March 2019. He tells me he was falsely labeled as a gang member and was detained for almost eight months.
(KILMAR SPEAKING IN SPANISH)
TRANSLATOR: Yeah, that is ridiculous. A person’s clothing shouldn’t be criteria for locking them up for eight months. As we all know, the worst consequence of fashion choices should be getting roasted by teens on TikTok.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Maddie B from Georgia has a right to her opinions, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t hurt. Hey, Maddie, fuck you!
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Congratulations on your sweet 16, but fuck you!
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And notably, two separate federal judges have looked at the government’s evidence and found it unconvincing, with one on Wednesday writing that “for the court to find that Ábrego is a member of or in affiliation with MS-13 would border on fanciful.” And his isn’t the only story that brings these databases into question. The Trump administration also deported this Venezuelan man, Francisco Garcia Casique, to the El Salvadoran prison CECOT, claiming he’s a member of Tren de Aragua, something that he and his family strongly deny. And while the government hasn’t supplied any evidence for that claim, reporters discovered a Texas gang database does list him as a member of that gang. But that listing has some pretty big red flags on it, including that that photo is of someone else entirely. Those are two whole different genres of men.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And it was only after this was pointed out that authorities removed his entry from Texas’s database. And at that point, it’s about as trustworthy as those ads at the bottom of websites with headlines like, “You’ll Never Believe What Angela Bassett Looked Like as a Child” paired with a photo of Little Miss Sunshine.
Guys…
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
…I don’t think that’s her.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
The fact is, around the country, many local and state police departments keep these databases, sometimes without disclosing them, despite investigations repeatedly finding them to be notoriously inconsistent and opaque, riddled with questionable entries and errors, and rife with unreliable intelligence. So, given all of that, tonight, let’s talk about gang databases, how people end up on them, and the massive problems they can cause. Before we start, let’s just briefly discuss what a gang is. Because the word can conjure up media representations of tight, coordinated groups whose members are all engaged in sophisticated criminal conspiracies and violent crimes. But nowadays, a gang can look wildly different with many being loose groups of teenagers banding together for protection, status, or a feeling of community. There’s a lot of variability here, and not all gang members may even be engaged in crime. As one researcher has put it, “Not all gang members are criminals, and not all criminals are gang members.” Unfortunately, none of that nuance is on display in these databases. And depending where you live, the reasons to be added to one can be worryingly broad, as this defense attorney explains.
SETH APFEL: It is a database entirely maintained by law enforcement that has no scrutiny from any other branch of government or from any citizen organization or from anybody whatsoever. They control this database completely. And if they want you in this database, they can put you in this database.
DAVE BISCOBING: So, we don’t know what they’re doing or how they’re doing it? Nope. As far as you know, you could be in that database, I could be in that database. Well, that is not ideal. Because in terms of lists you don’t want to find your name on, a police gang database seems like one of the worst, right above the Epstein client list, which…
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS) …luckily, remember, doesn’t exist, and I can’t believe anyone’s still talking about it.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
The criteria to be added to a gang database are typically unrelated to criminal conduct and more focused on how a person looks, acts, and whom they associate with. Some places even have a point system where certain actions or identifiers get added up to qualify you for inclusion. The Boston Police Department uses a point system for identifying gang members and associates. For example, if you’re in a group photo or have contact with a gang member, that’s two points. If you use gang paraphernalia or other identifiers, that’ll earn you four points. Six points, and you’re considered a gang associate. Ten points, and you are a verified gang member. Yeah, but that evidence seems pretty weak. Just being in one group photo with someone doesn’t automatically mean you’re meaningfully linked. There is a reason that we don’t call the people in this photo “the Kevin Spacey Gang.”
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
But it’s not just photos and paraphernalia. Being in a known gang location or wearing gang colors can also land you in a database, but that can get very subjective, as at one point, the colors the NYPD considered to be associated with various gangs were black, gold, yellow, red, purple, green, blue, white, brown, khaki, gray, orange, and lime green. That sounds less like a thoroughly vetted list of gang signifiers and more like someone naming what colors the Gap Factory ForeverSoft Shrunken Crewneck T-shirt -comes in.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Also, for the record, lime green is just a terrible gang color.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Nobody looks good in lime green except maybe Jessica Chastain once. Now, as for associating with known gang members, that can mean merely talking to an alleged member, being seen walking next to them, or simply having the status of “friends” on a social media platform. In some places, even being the victim of alleged gang violence counts towards getting someone on the database. In Boston, that can earn you eight of the ten points required. And the thing is, the evidence can get even thinner, as in many places, the sole criteria can be “self-admission.” And just watch as the NYPD’s then-chief of detectives gets asked a fairly obvious follow-up about that. People self-admit to us every day in New York City. So, self-admission will get you in the criminal group database. So, does the police officer, patrol officer perhaps, ask, “Are you in a gang?” and people just willingly answer that question?
DERMOT SHEA: Yeah, I would– I would– That is not generally what happens. Right. Of course it isn’t. No one’s gonna voluntarily tell a cop that they’re in a gang unless they just got kicked in the head by a police horse. What “self-admission” can actually mean is we found something on your social media that we’ve decided constitutes you admitting to being in a gang. But that can include things like online posts simply using the word “gang.” In one instance, a teenager who posted a picture with a friend with the caption “Happy birthday gang” was added to a database with “self-admission” listed as one of the reasons. And if the bar is that low, anything is basically a confession. A pic of you holding a diploma with a caption, “Killed it.” Congratulations, grad, but guess what? Now you’re wanted for murder.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And while so far, I’ve been saying anyone can be added to these lists, those who end up on them are heavily people of color. In DC, their database at one point had almost 2,000 names on it, and only one individual was white. One in total. Do you know how few lists there are with only one white guy on them? It’s basically this database and the cast of Hamilton. That is it.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And police can cast a pretty wide net when it comes to flagging people as potential gang members. A 2023 audit of the NYPD’s database found they designated entire public housing buildings as gang locations. And in California, this man was approached by police in what they apparently considered “a known gang location,” which was just a park in South Central L.A. They jump out, they come over there to us, “Hey, you guys, we got a call that y’all was drinking and you’re loud,” and I said, “Well, ain’t nothing– there’s nothing on the table, so what do you mean drinking?”
ARIEL WESLER: He says officers interviewed them, asked them to hand over their IDs and raise their shirts to show any tattoos.
LARRY SANDERS: You can have a tattoo and not be a gang member.
ARIEL: About a week later…
LARRY: I got a letter in the mail saying that I’m a gang member. I’m like, “Wow.”
Yeah!
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS) Wow, indeed. Having a tattoo clearly doesn’t mean you’re in a gang, and it definitely doesn’t mean you’ve committed a crime. Lots of people have them for all sorts of reasons, like Adam Levine, who once explained his shark tattoo by saying, “I’ve always had a strange fascination with sharks. I actually think they’re the most fascinating creatures on Earth. I guess the tattoo had something to do with that.” And who here can disagree? Adam Levine treating his body like a ten-year-old sticker book doesn’t mean he’s guilty of a crime. Now, DMing an Instagram model, “I may need to see the booty…”
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS) …feels pretty close to one, but that is different, isn’t it? And it turns out that man is not only not a gang member, he literally worked in gang intervention trying to prevent kids from joining them and make communities safer. And he is well aware of the irony of all this. You can’t stereotype everybody that you just pull up on. I mean, you got some bad cats out here, but then you got some bad police out here that don’t really care about nothing.
ARIEL: Larry says he’s never been in a gang.
LARRY: Not interested in joining. I sing. It’s what I do.
ARIEL: And he’s pretty good at it. His rap name is LV, short for Large Variety. And his big claim to fame?
♪ (“GANGSTA’S PARADISE” BY COOLIO FEAT. LV PLAYING) ♪
ARIEL: Singing the vocals for Coolio’s Grammy-winning song, “Gangsta’s Paradise” in 1995. It’s true. He’s basically music royalty.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And for anyone who doesn’t know, “Gangsta’s Paradise” was a hit song from the well-meaning white teacher movie, Dangerous Minds. And it’s one of the rare rap songs without any cursing in it because it samples a Stevie Wonder song, and he apparently didn’t want to clear the sample until Coolio offered to take out all the swears, and then he agreed. So to recap here, the police put the gang interventionist from the clean rap song about the cyclical nature of gang violence on California’s gang database.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And a pretty good sign these databases have too many names in them is just how quickly they get smaller as soon as people start asking questions. After the police in DC faced a spate of news articles and lawsuits, they suddenly managed to remove nearly half of the individuals on their database, which isn’t surprising given it turns out a police lieutenant there had admonished his staff about weak and bad validations in the gang database, writing, “Sooner or later, the entire unit is going to get burned for this.” And in some cases, people have been flagged as gang members seemingly out of pure spite. Take what happened in Phoenix just a few years back.
DAVE: Inside the state’s gang member database, you’ll find the names of 17 of these umbrella-carrying protesters. In October 2020, they marched in the middle of downtown Phoenix streets, followed by many more Phoenix officers. Then they huddled on a street corner where they got arrested and eventually charged as a criminal street gang. To charge as a street gang in Arizona, the law is broad. You need just two of the following criteria. And here are the ones that officials claimed for the protesters. They carried umbrellas, they wore mostly black, and they chanted, “All cops are bastards.” For those reasons, officials labeled them members of ACAB, a gang of extremists.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE GROANS)
Yeah, that happened. The cops rounded up 17 people at a Black Lives Matter protest and branded them all as a gang, with one police sergeant even telling a grand jury that they were “more dangerous than the Crips, the Bloods, and the Hells Angels.” Which is a pretty major exaggeration given their energy doesn’t scream violent gang so much as “goth Singin’ in the Rain.”
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
As for the “wearing all black,” that is not suspicious, that’s called taste. And that’s not me talking. That’s Coco Chanel, honey. If you have a problem with that, tell it to her grave in Switzerland, where all true fashionistas get buried. Now, in that case, the State Department of Public Safety declined to add those people to the database, and for good reason, especially given some had never even met before that night, and one was this guy who just saw them walk by and started taking photos. But however you get onto these lists, whether it’s a Facebook post, living in the wrong building, or just annoying the cops, it can be very hard to get off. Few places have real mechanisms for challenging your placement, assuming you even know you’re on one in the first place, because while that singer got a letter in the mail, California is one of the few places that requires you be notified if you’re added to a database. And let’s say you were in a gang, but you left, which is actually pretty common. Experts say most people who join gangs might just try it out for a couple years, then leave. The problem is, while departments are supposed to reevaluate gang database entries at least every five years and purge those that officers can’t reconfirm, that doesn’t always happen. One of the first in-depth looks at California’s database found it was rife with names that should have been purged long ago. And if your name is in a database, it can open you up to even more interaction with police, as you’re more likely to get stopped and searched or arrested for a minor infraction, which is obviously dangerous, especially for people of color who, remember, are the vast majority of those on these databases. Just listen to this man in New York explaining how an outdated gang label came back to haunt him.
HAZEL SANCHEZ: Thirty-two-year-old Victor Dempsey, a former gang member who served prison time at 17 years old for attempted robbery, says he left his gang life behind more than a decade ago. But he claims the NYPD’s gang database still has him listed as a known member, which he realized during a recent routine traffic stop.
VICTOR DEMPSEY: The fact that they decided to detain me in their squad car because I’m labeled a gang member is outrageous to me, and I did not know until that day. I happened to see the monitor, and there was a mugshot of me that said, “security risk.” Yeah, that’s a pretty nasty surprise. But I will say, good on that guy for doing what we all do, but very few are brave enough to admit to, taking a little peek at someone else’s screen.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
If your screen is out in public, I’m a-peekin’. A four– A four-paragraph friend breakup on the subway?
Don’t mind if I fucking do.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Sarah has been different since the 4th of July beach hang, and you’re right to tell her over text. And all of this can have long-term effects. If you’re labeled a gang member, you could face higher bail, tougher prosecution, and even a longer sentence. For instance, in California, let’s say you’re accused of stealing a phone and are charged with robbery. Your sentence might be around two to five years. But if you’re in their database and the D.A. pursues a gang enhancement charge, you could easily be facing as much as 15 years. And that, crucially, can push people to feel like they have to take plea deals. And when it comes to immigrants, the designation of “gang member” can be truly life-altering. It– It can be the reason that someone’s denied various pathways to remain in the US, and it can make someone a higher priority for deportation and the target of a raid. Take what happened during Trump’s first term. Back then, there was a real presence of MS-13 in Long Island, with significant associated violence, but that fed into a paranoia that got wildly out of hand because schools there were told to be on the lookout for gang activity, with some maddeningly imprecise guidance, as both a school administrator and a community activist there pointed out.
SPEAKER: You really don’t see this guy anymore. You’re going to see these guys. It’s going to be the kid in the skinny jeans and the polo shirt and maybe the Chicago Bulls cap.
MARIANA GIL: They put on a presentation. They show images of bandanas or Bulls horns, and they tell us that those are items that, if we see the students wearing or drawing, that we should be on the alert because it’s related to a gang. I’ve heard things like, “Oh, well, they scribble ‘503’ in their notebooks.” Duh. It’s the area code of where they come from.
(AUDIENCE EXCLAIMS)
Yeah. And kids are gonna doodle. And 503 is honestly preferable to what most students are drawing, dicks, just loads and loads of dicks. Octopus with dick tentacles, the Easter bunny with dick ears, the school’s principal with dicks for arms, legs, and even hair. They are lucky their students were doing area codes instead. And the thing about telling teachers and school police, “Look out for a bunch of kids all wearing the same thing,” is that wearing the same thing is literally what kids do. One teacher there later told the story of how she was working lunch duty when a school security guard told her he thought it was suspicious that a lot of the students were wearing the Salvadoran flag. As she put it, “Thank God I was there, because I told him, ‘Today is their Independence Day.’ He had no clue.” And just imagine being labelled a gang member because a school security guard didn’t have international holidays turned on on his Google calendar.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
But unfortunately, not all kids were as lucky as those in that particular lunchroom because at another high school in that area, a teenager called Alex got added to a gang database by a school resource officer after he was seen, among other things, wearing blue sneakers, which school security guards told him were the color of MS-13. They also cited the fact that he’d written the numbers 504 on his backpack, and had doodled a devil with horns. You should know, Alex was a Honduran immigrant, and 504 was the Honduras country code. As for the devil, that was literally that school’s mascot. This is what it looked like, also blue, by the way, the color of MS-13.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS) Nevertheless, Alex got labeled an MS-13 member, and a few months later, ICE agents came to his house, arrested him, telling him they’d heard he was a gang member, and he was eventually deported. And he wasn’t the only one scooped up. And when a police commissioner there was asked why he thought collaborating with ICE was a good idea, he had a pretty chilling answer.
MARCELA GAVIRIA: Why do you need to even bring in ICE? Because the evidence isn’t strong enough? For example, if we have intelligence that they are a gang member, that’s not necessarily a crime, right? Certainly being a gang member is not a crime, and the intel that we may have may not indicate a significant state crime. We may have something small in them, but nothing is going to keep them in jail. So, if we perceive someone as a public safety threat, we utilize all of our tools, which include immigration tools. So, we’ll partner with the Department of Homeland Security to target them for detention and removal. Okay, so there is a lot there. First, thank you for finally answering the question, “What would American Dad! look like in real life?”
But second…
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
…if someone’s on your list of big, bad criminals and you can’t find any big, bad crime to arrest them for, that suggests the problem might be your fucking list. So, it is pretty clear gang databases are way too easy to get on, way too hard to get off, and can turn people’s lives upside down. So, what do we do? Well, I’d argue we get rid of them. And– And if you’re thinking, “Well, hold on, how will police then stop gang violence?” I’d say, “With police work.” They could and should do actual police work focusing on where violence is concentrated instead of fixating on labels. As one expert who studied gangs has said, “Dangerous groups and dangerous offenders can be tracked perfectly well by ordinary law enforcement intelligence methods and systems.” They don’t need these databases to do that. And for what it’s worth, Chicago and Portland, following criticism, actually scrapped their databases in recent years. And one analysis found it has not resulted in an increase in reported crime. Meanwhile, departments in other cities, including some I’ve mentioned like Phoenix and New York, told us they’ve learned from the past and tightened up how people are added to their databases. But that is very hard to verify given how opaque all of this is. And I’m not saying violence associated with gangs isn’t real or isn’t a problem. I’m just saying the answer needs to go beyond policing and way beyond these databases. One expert we spoke with emphasized the need to keep putting resources toward “community violence intervention workers,” who can access “spaces and networks that police can’t and perhaps shouldn’t enter, like family cookouts and peace talks between warring street crews, as those individuals have the credibility to mediate disputes, mentor young people at risk, and guide them toward potentially life-saving opportunities.” But until we make that paradigm shift, we may need to fundamentally change our understanding of what being on one of these databases means. Because when you hear “known gang member” or that something was “gang involved” on the news, it sounds like evidence. But as you’ve seen tonight, far too often, the label’s sloppily applied with flimsy criteria and very little regard for what the consequences could be. Keeping these databases as they are isn’t just short-sighted. It is actively harmful to the communities they’re supposed to be helping. If only there were a more elegant way to sum all that up in just a sentence delivered by someone with first-hand experience of this problem. Luckily, I think I may know just the person to speak to that point.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
♪ (“GANGSTA’S PARADISE” BY COOLIO FEAT. LV PLAYING) ♪
♪ Tell me why are we So blind to see ♪
♪ That the ones we hurt Are you and me? ♪
Good point, LV! Please!
♪ Been spendin’ most our lives ♪
♪ Livin’ in A gangsta’s paradise ♪
♪ Been spendin’ most our lives ♪
♪ Livin’ in A gangsta’s paradise ♪
♪ Keep spendin’ most our lives ♪
♪ Livin’ in A gangsta’s paradise ♪
♪ Keep spendin’ most our lives ♪
♪ Livin’ in A gangsta’s paradise ♪
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
And now, this.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
