Rainier Harris: Kraig Lewis was one semester away from getting his graduate degree. One night, he fell asleep, studying for a final. Then a loud banging sound woke him up. 

Kraig Lewis: I opened the door yelling, like why y’all banging on my door it’s like five in the morning. Are you crazy? 

Rainier: It was the police.

Kraig: They was like Kraig, yo we got a warrant for your arrest. I’m like — warrant?!

Rainier: Kraig was a student at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut: He had a scholarship, a job — as the grad assistant basketball coach — and he was about to get his MBA. His next stop was law school. He said he asked to see the warrant. 

Kraig: It said racketeering, the RICO, narcotics, narcotics on the playground, firearms, discharging firearms, I’m looking at them like, yo bro, this doesn’t make sense, sir. 

Rainier: Kraig was sure it was a misunderstanding. He told his girlfriend he’d be back in time for dinner. 

Kraig: I ain’t see her for another two years, bro.

Rainier: That night in 2016, Kraig was one of 120 people arrested in what is often called the largest gang raid in New York City history. But here’s the thing: Kraig says he was never in a gang. He waited almost two years in federal jail — for a trial that never came — and to get out, he took a plea deal for something he says he didn’t do.

Kraig: Everything they saying wasn’t true. And it was still strong enough to take my freedom away.

Rainier: When Kraig was a kid, his dad told him that because he was Black, all the odds would be against him. He saw police stopping and frisking and arresting Black kids all the time. But his mom told him that if he had an education, nothing could stop him. So, he thought doing well in school was the one way to beat the odds.

Kraig: I ended up going to private school. But I had to come home and deal with the neighborhood.

Rainier: I had the same experience as Kraig. I also went to private school. And my parents told me the same thing: get good grades and get a degree — and things will work out. But I didn’t think you could just wake up one day and lose everything. Until I joined the Youth Justice Board. It’s a group that meets twice a week to talk about issues that affect young people. Then, we come up with policy proposals. 

Ananya Roy: Thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony on the importance of public oversight of surveillance technology…

Rainier: That’s my friend Ananya Roy presenting our work to the City Council in 2019. That year, we looked at ways the NYPD targets Black and brown youth. 

Ananya: …As well as the use of social media to place youth of color on the NYPD Criminal Group Database, commonly known as a gang database.

Rainier: The NYPD gang database is a list of more than 17,000 people that police have labeled as gang members. Some are as young as 13. Police say it helps them stop violence and keep communities safe.

Commissioner Shea: And the racial breakdown, unfortunately, is extremely disparate…

Rainier: That’s former police commissioner Dermot Shea, at a City Council hearing in 2018. 

Commissioner Shea: …African American, 65 percent. White Hispanic, 24 percent, Black hispanic, 10 percent…

Rainier: It was the first time the NYPD publicly shared details about the gang database. 

Commissioner Shea:  …It’s approximately 95 percent people of color. 

Rainier: That same year, the city opened an investigation into the database. Before I joined the board, I had no idea this secretive gang database existed. Once I knew, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The people who are on this list — they look like me. And you can end up on it even if you’re just hanging around the people that police think are gang members — like the friends you grew up with. Kraig says that’s what happened to him.

Kraig: Where I’m from, say you go to the park and you don’t wanna be by yourself and you make friends. But, you know, this friend is probably doing something in the nighttime. But that’s none of really your business what he doing. I’m not thinking that I could get federally indicted for whatever he’s doing right now.

Rainier: Babe Howell, a CUNY law professor, has submitted multiple records requests to the NYPD to find out how people end up on this list. She’s even sued the department. I asked her what people should do to stay off the gang database.

Babe Howell: Don’t wear red, blue, yellow, green, purple. Don’t wear any color because every color is associated with a gang. Don’t hang out with your friends., your cousin, don’t be in a photo with other people because any one of them may be in a gang.

Rainier: And just being labeled a gang member means police can target you. And prosecutors can ask for higher bail and harsher sentences. They can also bring the same kind of conspiracy charges used to bring down the mafia — against you. But not everyone who joins a gang is involved in organized crime. 

Rainier: Hi Vidal.

Vidal Guzman: Hello, how’s everything going? 

Rainier: Hello, it’s all good. How you doing?

Rainier: I met up with Vidal Guzman on the block where he was born and raised in Harlem. Vidal says that, for him, joining a gang seemed inevitable. At five, he was homeless. At nine, he was selling drugs. At 15, he joined the gang that almost  everyone around him was a part of.

Vidal: I’m not saying that it was right, you know, but at the end of the day when circumstances and you don’t see no jobs and you seeing your family starving, what do you do? 

Rainier: Selling drugs landed him in Rikers at 16 and later, prison for five years. When he came home, he became an advocate for justice reform.

Vidal: …part of the close Rikers campaign, you know, the raise the age campaign…

Rainier: He’s also part of a campaign to end the gang database. And, right now, his work feels even more urgent. New York City Mayor Eric Adams wants police to focus specifically on gangs and guns. In March, he reinstated a new version of the notorious plainclothes unit that was disbanded two years ago after complaints about unconstitutional tactics. But Vidal says he knows what his community needs — and it isn’t more police and more surveillance.

Vidal: As someone who been through every part of the elements of violence, you know, doing violence, seeing violence and violence being done to me. This database, it doesn’t help anyone out. 

Rainier: As I learned more about the database, I came to the same conclusion — criminalizing communities of color doesn’t keep us safe. And if I could see that, even back when I was just 14, why can’t the adults in power? Vidal says what drives people to gangs is often a lack of resources — no jobs, no afterschool programs, underfunded schools, and not enough money to survive.  

Vidal: So if we’re serious around ending gang violence or any violence, we need resources.

Rainier: Like Vidal, Kraig Lewis has also become an advocate for resources and reform. He eventually wants to start a law firm in the Bronx, where he grew up. That was his plan — before he got arrested. For now, he’s struggling to get a job because he has a record from the plea deal he took. In the meantime, he speaks at rallies and schools. Sometimes right alongside Vidal.

Vidal, at a protest: We got to make sure we have policy that protect us…

Rainier: They want people to know that if we really want to fix the root causes of violence, the city has to invest in people, not handcuffs. 

For WNYC, I’m Radio Rookies reporter Rainier Harris.