Three men on a New York Police Department list of criminal gang members filed a putative class action alleging officers unconstitutionally surveil, detain and harass Black and Latino people on the list, civil rights groups said Wednesday.

The lawsuit, filed in New York federal court, challenges the nation's largest police department's criminal group database, which the NYPD says is a key tool for investigators. However, 99% of the more than 13,000 people labeled as active gang members in the list are Black or Latino, some as young as 13 years old, according to a copy of the civil complaint provided to Law360.

"The NYPD designed the database and its related policies and practices to target young Black and Latino men and boys based on their race and ethnicity, their constitutionally-protected relationships, and their speech," the complaint argues.

The three plaintiffs, Black men between the ages of 27 and 31, argue they had each been on the list for about a decade despite never having been members of a criminal organization. One plaintiff was listed as an active gang member despite his employment as an emergency medical technician for the New York Fire Department, according to the complaint.

Two others, respectively categorized as active and inactive gang members, say police officers frequently stop them for minor infractions and detain them at police precincts for hours to question them.

"Putative class members are targeted and added to the database, leading to surveillance, monitoring, and harassment by police, for engaging in daily life: spending time with family, attending social events and cultural celebrations, liking a post on social media, having tattoos of initials, or posting a photo with friends on the local basketball court," the complaint says. "Some, including children, are stopped on their walks home from school and asked for permission to search their bookbags. Others avoid the neighborhoods where they grew up, missing out on time with family to escape the harassment that has shaped their young lives."

The lawsuit, brought by Ballard Spahr LLP and several nonprofit groups, claims the NYPD's conduct has violated the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, similar provisions in the state Constitution and a New York City prohibition on biased policing. It seeks to block the city from using or updating the list.

On Wednesday, an NYPD spokesperson told Law360 that the department has protections in place to prevent the database from being misused or improperly shared. Additionally, inclusion in the database is not grounds for a stop or arrest, the spokesperson said in an email.

The database helps officers intervene in often fast-moving cycles of gang violence, according to the spokesperson.

"If we know from the database that a shooting victim is a gang member, the identities of rival gang members, and where those gangs are based, we can immediately deploy officers in a way that will help prevent retaliatory shootings," the spokesperson wrote. "Our detectives work tirelessly to investigate these shootings and seek justice for the victims and their families. These successes are lives saved, often the lives of young people who would otherwise have become shooting victims."

The plaintiffs are represented by Kevin Jason, Elizabeth Caldwell, Lauren Carbajal, Alexsis Johnson, and Catherine Logue of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Philip Desgranges, Rigodis Appling, and Alexandra Ogunsanya of The Legal Aid Society, Andrew Case and Mariana Camilla Lopez of LatinoJusticePRLDEF, Anne Venhuizen and Isabel Bolo of The Bronx Defenders, and Samhitha Medatia, Marjorie Peerce, Samuel Erlanger, Marcel Pratt, Katherine Oaks, and Christopher Hatfield of Ballard Spahr LLP.

Counsel information for the defendants was not immediately available.

The case is Plaintiffs 1-3 et al. v. The City of New York et al., case number 25-cv-02397, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

--Editing by Drashti Mehta.