A new class-action lawsuit says Chicago police rely on an error-plagued database that names nearly 200,000 people as street-gang members when many aren't in gangs and never have been.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday morning in Chicago federal court says inclusion can ruin someone's job prospects and create other serious problems.
The filing says once individuals are officially listed as gang members they are "in the database forever" with little recourse to have their names removed.
It says more than 128,000 adults are in the gang database, 70 percent of whom are black and 25 percent of whom are Latino. Less than 5 percent are white. It says there are as many as 68,000 juveniles in the database.
Messages seeking comment from the city and police were left Tuesday morning.
