Shant Shahrigian
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — Police Commissioner Dermot Shea gave a fiery defense of the NYPD’s DNA database, the system that identifies and stores genetic samples to help investigations.
“The NYPD has been erroneously charged with misusing the local DNA database,” he said at a City Council hearing on the police budget on Wednesday. “The DNA samples in the database are never touched, except when a match is found between crime scene evidence for a rape case, for instance, and a suspect.
“Although critics have suggested the NYPD is routinely collecting huge volumes of DNA samples from arrestees,” he continued, “the database only contains about 30,000 suspect DNA exemplars, compared with 1.79 million arrests in the past years.”
The remarks came amid accusations that the NYPD has created a “genetic stop-and-frisk,” a reference to the controversial tactic that disproportionately targeted black and Latino men. The creator of the database, Dr. Howard Baum, recently told the Daily News he was troubled that the system has taken on a far wider scope than he intended 20 years ago.
While insisting the DNA database is under control, Shea dodged a question from Councilman Donovan Richards asking whether he believed innocent people who haven’t been found guilty of anything should be in it.
“We’re coming up to be more transparent in terms of the policy that’s going to be released,” said the city’s top cop. “I’m comfortable with where the policy is right now.”
The NYPD will remove 7,000 to 8,000 people from the database “in the next year or so,” added the NYPD’s First Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Tucker.
Richards said the database contains DNA samples from “370 black men” that were collected in connection with the NYPD’s investigation of the 2016 murder of Karina Vetrano.
Shea said he couldn’t confirm that number.
“It is ongoing. In terms of the details of the criminal case and the collection of evidence, I won’t comment on that,” the commissioner said.
He also addressed criticism over facial recognition technology. Last year, it emerged that mug shots of kids as young as 11 are part of the NYPD’s facial recognition database, raising concerns among watchdogs.
“Facial recognition is a hugely valuable tool in countering robberies, hate crimes, sexual assaults, shootings, and other violence,” Shea said. “The NYPD does not misuse this technology.”