The Police Game

Scott Glover and Matt Lait report in today's LOS ANGELES TIMES that one Los Angeles Sheriffs Department (LASD) supervisor, Lt. James Tatreau, organized "games" in which deputies were urged to compete to see who could make the most arrests in a day.

The reason Tatreau said he instituted the games were, one, "there are good, hardworking deputies and there are the lazy guys [and] he was trying to encourage the less motivated deputies to get more involved in proactive police work."

This unwittingly provides information to the rest of the world that LASD may not have wanted disclosed. Civil rights activists, and victims of false arrest, have long recognized that there is pressure on law enforcement officers to make arrests, which naturally leads to false arrests. If they make fewer arrests, they are viewed as not doing their job.

That's not true, of course. An officer who investigates, finds no basis for an arrest, and refrains from arresting is doing his or her job. But law enforcement agencies don't all see it that way. They like officers who make lots of arrests.

Tellingly, despite the game, the number of arrests didn't go up. Apparently the law-abiding officers didn't give a rat's ass about Lt. Tatreau's "game." But we should. Because police all over the country play that game every day. That's how it works.

California's Big Secret

Matt Lait and Scott Glover follow up in today's LA TIMES ("Privacy risk to police unclear") on the failure of a bill (SB 1019) in the California state legislature which would have reopened to public view administrative hearings on officer misconduct. The hearings have been closed since a recent California Supreme Court decision.

Lait and Glover tracked down legislators who justified their votes on the grounds that making the hearings public -- as they had been for decades -- would put officers' lives at risk. The TIMES asked for examples of officers who had ever been harmed, or even threatened with harm, as a result of the public hearings in the past. Answer: none.

This is because whatever the problem is, it's a new one, which wouldn't be reflected in the prior history of these hearings.

That new problem is the internet. The police union's general counsel provided this questionable, but helpful statement: "Once you have that name, it's easy to locate residences and addresses. ... The example I use is any jerk sitting in a cave in Afghanistan with access to the Internet can download it."

The statement is questionable because finding residential addresses on the internet can't be the problem. If it were, officers wouldn't continue to give out their business cards, identify themselves in court when they testify, wear nameplates on their uniforms, etc. Nor would judges give their names in open court. Or prosecutors. These are ways that a criminal can easily obtain names of people he or she doesn't like in his or her case, without any disciplinary hearing taking place. So the concern is not the officers' home addresses. Those are strictly hidden from the internet.

Yes, the internet is the problem. But not due to an officer safety issue. Here's the problem: "Police union leaders said that trial lawyers and reporters would mine the records to try to undercut the credibility of officers."

That's the problem. Not officer safety. Officer credibility.

Over the last decades, California has gotten into the business of constantly moving a large segment of its population in and out of jails and prisons, over and over. The policy, which the public approves, is to deal with all sorts of societal problems -- poverty, mental disability, substance abuse -- by throwing them into cages. Still homeless? Back to jail. Still addicted? Back to jail. Still bothering the neighbors with your paranoia and delusions? Back to jail.

One defect of this policy is that it creates an ocean of criminal law enforcement litigation for the courts to resolve. The due process protections of the U.S. Bill of Rights create a bottleneck for that ocean to pass through. It's not feasible to respect the rights of the criminally accused to things like probable cause before arrest; or to evidence collected without unlawful searches; or to uncoerced confessions; when you've got such an ocean to take care of. The release valve for that ocean of cases is law enforcement officers' false statements, in police reports and on the witness stand, sometimes referred to as "testilying" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testilying). False statements about why someone was pulled over in the first place; about alleged self-incrimination; about whether someone consented to a search; statements like that. Without those false statements -- which admittedly include false statements against defendants who really are guilty, but also convict the innocent -- the system would break down. The alternative would be to move from a policy of cages, to a policy of treatment, education, counseling. And California isn't ready for that. So its system routinely depends upon the false statements of police.

That system can't work without concealing the records of officers who have been caught lying in the past. As police union officials fear, defense attorneys would be duty-bound to show those records to the jury, and a lot of defendants, defendants who committed the charged conduct, as well as innocent defendants, would escape the cage. Over time, the number of jurors would increase who simply refuse to accept the word of a cop without some independent supporting evidence. And court dockets would become totally unmanageable as more defendants opted for jury trials, because those trials became more winnable.

So California has developed an "honor" system for controlling records of police dishonesty. In order for a criminal defense attorney to see any iota of information from the personnel records of a testifying officer who has been caught lying in the past, the attorney has to make one or more "Pitchess" motions, at the end of which they may obtain incomplete skeletal traces from those personnel records. This procedure typically takes months to complete. And this procedure depends on the police independently deciding, on their "honor," what is, and what is not, appropriate for the judge or the defense attorney to see. Those records are kept by the police, and they only bring into court what they choose to bring, on their "honor."

There's plenty of room for error in this "honor" system. But if the LA TIMES wants to talk to criminal defense attorneys about examples of such errors, it's unlikely any names will be mentioned. It's all a big secret in California, by law.

If the disciplinary proceedings were again made public, then by conducting an internet search, a criminal defense attorney could swiftly check to see whether the police in a particular case had failed to disclose all incidents of an officer's prior dishonesty. Those incidents, given the amount of false statements police are called upon to make, pile up. After five or ten years, too many officers would be of no use to the system, because the jury could be shown that their statements were not reliable. It's impossible to recruit enough new, "clean" officers to make up the difference.

So in California, by defeating this legislation, the system is keeping its officers "clean" by hiding the dirt. That's how it works.

Self-Diagnosis

Paul Pfeifer writes in today's LA TIMES ("Accused killer called fit to share jail cell") a follow-up to his article yesterday ("Jailers are asked how killer was able to strike again"), which I also blogged ("The Immensity of the Process"). The new reported statements are worth looking at because they illustrate how efforts to make needed change can get sidetracked.

L.A. County Jail inmate Kurt Karcher had been in a one-man prison cell for over a year and under treatment in state prison for bipolar disorder. This mentally-disturbed, alleged former white- supremacist gangmember, convicted of killing an attorney, and allegedly having admitted strangling to death his state prison cellmate, was nevertheless housed by the County with a Latino jail cellmate, whom he also allegedly strangled to death 4 days later.

L.A. County jail and California state prison officials have asserted that county jailers weren't told Karcher's background of insanity, racism, and murder, because the state didn't think it was necessary.

As I explained in yesterday's blog, there is reason to suspect that jailers did know of Karcher's background and locked an inmate of another race in with him anyway.

Today, we have a report that the jail mental health workers certified him as safe for general housing. This is a fresh "office error" explanation for the incident. L.A. County Jail psychologist Robert Fish offers that "some of our most severely disturbed inmates with mental illness deny they have problems." So, he implies, housing errors like this one result.

That's not very persuasive. A hallmark of mental illness is that the sufferer is convinced he or she is fine. That's no news. Dr. Fish implies that jail mental health workers must nevertheless simply rely on prisoner self-diagnosis in making their housing recommendations, either without asking for, or without looking at, records that might disclose a background of, for example, racism, mental illness, and in-custody homicide.

In addition to being fairly implausible, Dr. Fish's statements don't address the real issue. Didn't the state tell the county jail about Karcher's history? Withholding such information would have put county jail guards at risk of injury or death. So it's unlikely the information was, in fact, withheld by the state correctional system.

Dr. Fish's statements simply steer the discussion away from the holes in the officials' story, and into a relatively inoffensive examination of mental health cell assignment procedures. If things continue in that direction, the County will end up having to look at changing an office protocol. A few months later, they'll decide they don't have to make an adjustment, or that they do have to make an adjustment. But the question of whether procedures were ignored in this case, and what, if anything, to do about that, will have fallen by the wayside.

That's the way it works.

The Immensity of the Process

Stuart Pfeifer writes in today's LA TIMES about the alleged second inmate murder by the same LA County jail prisoner, named Kurt Karcher ("Jailers are asked how killer was able to strike again"). Because some of the information in the article is based on unreliable sources, there's no way of knowing what really happened, but it offers a useful starting point for comment on the jails.

Let's start with what is likely to be true. Two inmates are dead. One was named Scott Manning. He was in the Lancaster, California State Prison for burglary. That means that, at minimum, Manning unlawfully stuck some part of his body into a building structure with the intention of committing a crime. He died March 7, 2006. He was strangled by cellmate Kurt Karcher. (Karcher allegedly admits killing him, but claims self-defense.) Karcher was serving a life sentence for robbing and strangling a California attorney who had used his services as a male prostitute. The article doesn't tell us the attorney's gender, but it looks like Karcher may have been a violent homosexual, who killed his cellmate while serving a life sentence. He was assigned thereafter to a one-man prison cell for more than a year.

In order to be tried on this second homicide charge, Karcher was transferred to LA County Jail so he could easily be transported to a downtown LA courtroom. But he wasn't put in one of the County jail's 1,041 one-man cells. Despite his alleged background as a white-supremacist gangmember and mentally-disturbed bipolar disorder sufferer and killer, he was put in a cell with Latino Jose Daniel Cruz, whom he strangled to death 4 days later. Cruz was in jail for threatening his sister. His sister says she hadn't even wanted him arrested. (Just as a sidelight, it would be useful if the public understood that once they call the police for help with an abusive family member, they lose control over the process. They may only want someone to be removed from the home tonight, or given a good talking-to by someone in authority. Doesn't matter what they want. If the police want otherwise, that family member is going to jail, where they may die. There is some truth to the nasty phrase, "9-1-1 means death".)

The TIMES article focuses on one issue: why weren't LA county jail officials told by California state prison officials that Karcher, the prostitute turned killer, had already strangled one cellmate? State prison officials explain they didn't think it was necessary, because detectives, from the same Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department that runs the jails, had been involved in the prison death investigation. So no need to check a box or scribble a line saying, "Better put this killer in a one-man cell - that's what we've been doing."

Are the state prison officials really that careless?

The article includes statements about "the immensity of the process" and the "apparent communications gap between state and county jail officials, who exchange hundreds of inmates a day."

Sorry. That's like talking about the thousands of airplanes flying around thousands of buildings every year, and suggesting the World Trade Towers were hit by accident. This inmate was a big deal murderer on trial for a second, in-custody, murder. He didn't make a single move without everyone checking everything twice, every step of the way. Leaving that information out would have put jail guards at deadly risk, too. Not very likely.

So how did this omission occur? Or, did it occur?

One thing we know about government agencies, especially government agencies with a claim to a need for secrecy, is that their statements to the press are just not completely reliable. They cover for each other. When under attack, sometimes they say things to the media, critical things, that are completely inaccurate.

So this story, about accidentally omitting to tell jail officials the critical alleged facts about multiple killer Karcher, is an unreliable story. That leaves the possibility that jail officials were, in fact, told his background. Under the circumstances, it's actually the more likely possibility.

At LA Police Watch, we get complaints from inmates that jail officials put them in a cell with known violent cellmates; that jail officials provoked violence against them by telling the general inmate population that they were troublemakers who brought punishment down on all; or that they were child molesters. That jail officials opened the cell door and then stood by and did nothing while an inmate was being beaten. It is reasonable to suspect that the LA County Jail does deliberately put inmates in with known dangerous cellmates. On the limited and unreliable information available today, that seems a real possibility in this incident.

Karcher was claiming self-defense in his second murder charge. If his third alleged victim, cellmate Cruz, had survived - had only been threatened or beaten, not killed - Cruz could have been called to the stand and damaged or destroyed Karcher's claim of self-defense in death number two. (For example, the Spector prosecutor has been parading surviving former female houseguests of Phil Spector's gunplay, to undermine Spector's claim that he was not holding the gun when his final female houseguest received a fatal headshot. Victims of criminal conduct that was similar to the charged offense are very effective against claims of innocence.)

There's also the fact that a lot of cases are made on the basis of testimony about self-incriminating statements allegedly overheard by cellmate informants. Can't have a cellmate informant in a one-man cell. And a terrified cellmate, eager for transfer to a witness-protection cell, may listen very closely for self-incriminating statements.

Or, it could just have been done to punish cellmate number two. We have all seen countless TV and film scenes where the hero cop happily assures the bad guy that when he goes to jail a violent cellmate is going to rape him. Those scenes are played for us because the U.S. public vigorously approves of such prisoner treatment. And what the public approves, the prisoners are likely to suffer (and later see explained as a result of the "the immensity of the process"), regardless of what's written in some dusty constitution on a shelf somewhere.

That's the way it works.

More Jails for More Crowds

More Jails for More Crowds

Jack Leonard writes in today's LA TIMES on a number of Paris Hilton jail time-related issues ("Hilton case sheds light on sentencing process").

The thrust of the article is that local state judges are helpless to insure that all of those convicted will serve their full sentences, because a federal decree found the jail overcrowding Los Angeles was perpetrating on its own to be unlawful and unconstitutional.

The article notes that City prosecutors are looking for ways to modify the federal order to "ensure that more dangerous offenders serve more of their time." Why would they do that? The jail's early release program already distinguishes between violent and nonviolent offenders. Pure political posturing.

The article states that, over the last 5 years, 200,000 inmates have been released early, including some who committed violent crimes during the time they would otherwise have been locked up. Ok. But how many did not commit violent crimes within the jail - or die themselves - because they weren't so overcrowded they went crazy in a place where the jailers couldn't maintain control?

Answer: who cares? Sometimes it seems that our society figures if they're prisoners, they're not really human beings. Even though many haven't been convicted of any crime (arrestees awaiting trial are not eligible for early release), the majority of people on the outside still couldn't care less about their living conditions, and resent the federal law that does.

The article quoted one local prosecutor suggesting the only answer to the problem is to build more, and more colossal cages for the prisoner population.

Wait a minute. If our criminal law enforcement system of putting people in jails is such a great crime-stopper, how come there's still so many criminals after all these years of having it in place?

Maybe we like crime. If we liked crime, and wanted to increase both the number of criminals, and the violence of their crimes, we might come up with just the system we have. We would put petty criminals and mentally-disabled people in jammed windowless stinkholes where they slept on the floor. We certainly wouldn't be expanding programs for vocational training or psychological counseling. Which wouldn't end crime, but would probably reduce crime a lot more than pouring more money into the current system.

A system that in some ways appears designed to foster crime. And, absent the interference of a federal judge, violates some important laws called the Bill of Rights.

Maybe we don't like crime. But our system sometimes acts like it does. We may not like the results. But that's how it works.

The Strong System

"[P]eople should realize that the North Carolina criminal justice system is strong," THE NEW YORK TIMES' Duff Wilson today quotes David C. Evans, father of one of the Duke lacrosse team accused, commenting on the disbarment of Durham District Attorney Michael B. Nifong ("Prosecutor in Duke Case Disbarred by Ethics Panel").

What does "strong" mean? You have to wonder if it means that people rise to the top in that system if they handle cases the way Mr. Nifong did. "“From his very first involvement in this case, Mr. Nifong weaved a web of deception." That's what Doug Brock, lawyer for the North Carolina State Bar, which investigated the Nifong affair, had to say in the same article.

What about other systems? Are they strong too? So far, The Innocence Project has used DNA evidence to exonerate 203 people falsely convicted and imprisoned by district attorneys who worked in systems that were probably just as "strong" as North Carolina's. Would the fathers of those people likewise laud their criminal justice systems? Or would they say the system is wrong, and the Duke students are just lucky their case got national attention?

A visit to the IP's website (www.innocenceproject.org) offers some clues about why they might feel less supportive of our national criminal justice apparatus: eyewitness misidentification; unreliable scientific evidence; false confessions (including coerced confessions); government misconduct (example: "officials take steps to ensure that a defendant is convicted despite weak evidence or even clear proof of innocence"); incompetent, often overworked defense attorneys.

That is a "strong" system only in the sense that it pretty consistently locks people up behind stout bars. Not "strong" in the sense that it necessarily gets the right people, or results in less, or less violent crime.

But crime is money. It sells movie tickets, paperback novels; tv shows. It stokes fear and rage, which the "strong" criminal justice system, depicted in programs like "CSI" or "Law and Order", then neatly avenges in a Hollywood happy ending.

Crime is a societal disease. You can't cure it with the kind of wholesale torture that U.S. jails and prisons too often provide. But you can win the trust and gratitude of a public awash in images of vicious crime and triumphant revenge. And you can boost your chances in a close election, as Mr. Nifong did.

Will North Carolina now take a second look at others convicted by Mr. Nifong, and see if his deception weaving in the Duke case was a first and only?

Seems unlikely. Too many people, like Mr. Evans, the Duke student dad, believe that, if some passengers manage to escape the Titanic on one of the few lifeboats that function, it means "the system is strong." So why question? Full steam ahead.

That's how it works.

Texting Out The 4th Amendment

Suzanne Smalley writes in The Boston Globe today that Boston Police are hoping to boost anonymous crime accusations by inviting tipsters to text their tips. ("Crime solvers tap into texting - Police hope to get aid from young.")

The police claim that the purpose of this innovation is to combat a "Stop Snitchin' ethos" among young people in the inner city.

Some might think that the way to combat a "Stop Snitchin' ethos" is to have a criminal law enforcement system of police, prosecutors, and judges that people in the inner city trust and respect, rather than hate and fear.

Boston has a better idea. Use text messaging from cell phones. Apparently the reason why a "Stop Snitchin' ethos" would fail to discourage texted tips - even though it stops the same kids from using the same cell phones to make their crime reports in the form of spoken words - is that the texted tips would be even more anonymous. A 911 voice call is taped, and recorded voices are identifiable.

The problem is bogus tips, of course. A tip, bogus or not, has achieved nearly the authority in our country of a search or arrest warrant signed by a judge. So somebody who for any reason would like to see you busted can send an armed paramilitary force your way with a phone call. There are guidelines that supposedly limit the power of the police to break into your home or prone you out on the street on the basis of an anonymous tip, but they only come up if the tipster doesn't happen to know the minimums they have to satisfy; some lawyer is willing to raise the guidelines as an issue in a courtroom; and some judge thinks the lawyer "whining" about "technicalities" is worth paying attention to. Meanwhile, the police have already come and gone, perhaps taking a family member with them, perhaps leaving some teeth on the floor.

That's the way it works. And in Boston, it's going to start working that way a lot better, thanks to creative use of modern technology.

The Mission

Neil A. Lewis writes in the NEW YORK TIMES today ("Justice Dept. Reshapes Its Civil Rights Mission") that the Bush administration has cut back on prosecuting cases based on racial discrimination or police abuse, and instead pushed an agenda of throwing its weight behind religious organizations. Example: defending the right of the Child Evangelism Fellowship to distribute candy canes in the Massachusetts public schools along with materials claiming that their "j" shape refers to Jesus, and their red stripes symbolize Jesus' blood. And Justice Department hires and promotions are tilting in favor of lawyers with ties to religious institutions.

It makes liberals uneasy, but the Bush Administration is only acting according to the heartfelt wishes of many of the nearly half of Americans who preferred him as president. Equal rights for people of color has never really caught on in this country with a lot of folks, but those in opposition must keep their mouths shut. Our government and mainstream culture have adopted a public posture of disgust toward racism. Those who speak in favor of racism publicly, pay for the privilege. Don Imus.

So those who want to act according to those feelings have to find surrogate issues. One is abortion. Pro-choice advocates (in favor of a woman's right to decide about abortion without criminal penalty) are also overwhelmingly strong supporters of equal rights. So those with racist leanings can still vigorously oppose their opponents, but safely do it on "pro-life" grounds. Knock out all the vigorous defenders of a woman's right to choice, and you'll take out most of those who make trouble over race discrimination, too.

Likewise those who vigorously support a strong religious influence in public institutions - their opponents are those same damn liberals who want people of color to receive equal opportunity. Not surprisingly, those who are pro-life, are pro-state support for religion, not super pro-equal rights enforcement - and pro-George Bush.

So the Bush Administration can use the Justice Department to win support for the Republican Party among secret racists by fighting opponents of racism - since they also oppose teaching about Jesus' blood in the public schools - and even claim to be defending the 1st Amendment.

That's how it works.

Overcrowding

The LA TIMES reports today, following a review of 2 million jail releases, that Paris Hilton will be serving more time than 80% of those convicted of her same sort of crime - probation violation on a DUI. The article goes on to discuss Sheriff Baca's early release program - which the Hilton case judge specifically barred from application to Hilton, and sent her back to jail in defiance of.

Nothing too astonishing here. People who become judges can find they prefer the exercise of power with a minimum of interference. So when a fellow government official impinges on that power, there will be this kind of conflict.

More interesting is comparison with another headline the same day in the same paper: "City attorney, D.A. wage heated turf war." Two Los Angeles government prosecutors are sniping at each other because, with an election coming up, City Attorney Delgadillo is keeping the juiciest cases for himself, by charging them as misdemeanors (District Attorney Steve Cooley handles felonies).

Both of these stories grow out of the same phenomenon: the vast presence criminal law has come to have in our society. In the years since the Democratic "Great Society" program of funding social welfare and education programs to address our country's ills "failed", we have embarked on a course of throwing every conceivable problem in jail: poverty, mental disability, substance addiction, you name it. Laws that once were enforced only against the most egregious offenders are now routinely applied on a "zero tolerance" basis. The reason? As the turf wars reported today illustrate, crime is power. For municipal officials, crime is like the wind in a schooner's sails. It gets them where they want to go. So the more "crime" they can create, and then "fight", the better, up to a point.

Jail overcrowding can only be resolved by building more and bigger jails, or by reducing the police overcrowding in our personal lives. Which will it be? Where government officials like judges and prosecutors are concerned, crime is power. The end of the Paris Hilton story will be a cry for "reform" in the shape of more, and more colossal, cages for the poor and afflicted. That's how it works.

Baca ordered to report on Hilton's release

The LA TIMES reports today that L.A. County Sheriff Baca has been formally ordered by the County Board of Supervisors to report on why he ordered Paris Hilton released "early."

It's likely he'll formally reiterate his prior explanation: that the judge gave her a too-harsh sentence in the first place, and she had medical problems that the jail couldn't handle.

And a couple days ago, it was reported that a Hilton forebear had previously contributed to Baca's reelection campaign. And there is general suspicion that Baca (unlike the rest of us!) treats celebrities differently.

But I'm thinking about the Boston Strangler. Albert DeSalvo was convicted in the early sixties of sexually assaulting and strangling more than a dozen women in their homes, in a highly-publicized trial, but sentenced to imprisonment in the state's asylum for the criminally-insane - Bridgewater State Mental Hospital - following a brilliant defense by F. Lee Bailey. You can imagine how careful they were not to let The Boston Strangler out.

Nevertheless, he escaped a few months later - and then turned himself in! The escape, DeSalvo explained, was to draw public attention to the hideous conditions at the mental hospital. It worked. Big scandal.

The conditions in the L.A. County Jails are unspeakable. The system routinely relies on them to obtain confessions for defendants in criminal cases. The deal is, confess today, whether you did it or not, and you'll be out on probation tonight, or at least transferred to state prison. Of those who haven't spent the night there, only a defense attorney who has discussed these options with a trembling defendant while the stench coming through the bars makes your eyes water can understand.

This is not something the chief jailer wants somebody like Paris Hilton talking about, because people would listen to her. And they certainly don't want her dying behind bars, as so many inmates with obvious medical needs do. So they let her out.

That's how it works.

208 Arrested at Puerto Rican Day Parade

June 12, 2007 NEW YORK TIMES: “208 Arrested at Puerto Rican Day Parade, a Steep Increase”

I was there. I was trying out my skate skills. I want to go back to skating now I’ve moved back to New York City, and roller-skate the way I used to 20 years ago. So I went to Central Park and skated around, unintentionally running into the huge crowds and heavy police presence on the roadway.

The police claim the massive arrests this year were because of the Latin Kings, a Puerto Rican “street gang.” They didn’t have permission to march in the Puerto Rican Day Parade, and were supposedly attending anyway. So lots of people got busted.

Legal Aid lawyer Edward McCarthy is quoted in the NY TIMES on how the arresting was done. “People said they were being told by the police that they needed this group to turn the corner; then when they obeyed, the police were waiting around the corner.” Typical. Use compliance to trap the innocent. A number of non-gangmember types, committing no crimes, were reportedly “swept up with the crowd,” arrested, booked, arraigned, released.

Why is this happening? What purpose does it serve? People of color are processed, branded – for life. For the rest of their lives they will have a criminal record, and they will be in a national “gang database” as “gang-affiliated.” That makes them second-class citizens. Easier for the criminal law enforcement system to handle.

The charges will be dropped, lawsuits will be filed, civil rights lawyers will win a cash settlement for their clients, new rules will be written. But there’s really no need for any “new rules.” Everybody knows the 4^th Amendment prohibits this stuff. And as the immigration rights police riot in Los Angeles showed, the rules are sometimes little more than suggestions to be disobeyed at will. And our government is paying these people court awards with tax money – their money.

And the “new” rules will not include, and the courts will not order, the removal of their names from the “gang database.” That’s how it works.