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Around 9 p.m. on April 19, 1989, a 28 year-old White female jogger was brutally beaten, s*xually assaulted and left for dead in an isolated wooded area of Central Park. Because she was an investment banker with an Ivy League pedigree, the NYPD felt the pressure to apprehend the perpetrators of the heinous crime ASAP. Within hours, cops had extracted confessions from Anton McCray, Kevin Richardson, Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana Jr., teenagers who had been denied their right to an attorney. Although none of the five had ever been arrested before, they were all convicted of rape and attempted murder on the strength of those incriminating admissions alone. Part of the explanation for the legal lynching was that the victim was a wealthy White female while the accused were poor African-american kids from Harlem. The press was all too willing to exploit the hot button issues of color and class, and the media sensationalized the case’s lurid details, coining the term “wilding” to describe the alleged behavior of the defendants. Real estate magnate Donald Trump even took out full-page ads in every New York City daily newspaper, calling for the death penalty and saying that the boys “should be executed for their crimes.” In the face of the vigilante-like demand for vengeance, no one seemed concerned that the suspects’ DNA failed to match the only semen found at the scene. Sadly, they were only exonerated in 2002 after having completely served sentences ranging from 6 to 13 years when Matias Reyes, a serial rapist whose DNA was a match, confessed to the crime because of his guilty conscience. This gross miscarriage of justice is recounted in The Central Park Five, a riveting documentary co-directed by the father-daughter team of Ken and Sarah Burns, along with her husband, David McMahon. The film features reams of archival footage, including videotapes of the framed quintet’s coerced confessions. Mixed in are present-day reflections by them, their lawyers, and relatives, as well as by politicians, prosecutors and other pivotal players. It is a heartbreaking expose’ about a rush to judgment which ruined five innocent young lives. By: Kam Williams
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 12:08AM
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This was a tragic case and hearing about another black male sent off to prison still hurts every time :( The torment in their faces/demeanor after the conviction kills me...ugh so sad. The media did a lot of that back then though, of course they crucified them, she was white and Ivy League and they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 1:56AM
Ms FeatherFalls
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great Post, greatShow---thank you and sweetIrma TEACHING moment
Mr. Yusuf Salaam was the only one DURING that ERA, police, court or of the FIVE, that TOLD and LIVED the TRUTH, mrSalaam----did NOT ---- LIE----during this American Injustice ----- and Understood the Practice of the oldeAmerican Justice system
Thank You Mr. Yusuf Salaam for yourWisdom................
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 10:06AM
powell robert
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So what is our permanent solution? I believe our permenent solution is that we must desire to become a sovereign people in a country of our own right.
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 11:57AM
Harry Watley
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http://new.livestream.com/accounts/43597/e...
Times Talks: Ken Burns on Justice and ‘The Central Park Five’
Watch the discussion about the issues raised by “The Central Park Five,” the award-winning documentary about a 1989 rape in Central Park, the rush to judgment and the lives of those wrongly convicted.
The talk on Wednesday featured Ken Burns, the Emmy Award-winning producer, director and writer; Sarah Burns, the co-director and author; Jim Dwyer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist, who covered the case and is interviewed in the film; and the exonerated, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray and Korey Wis
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 1:57PM
DAVID JOHNSON
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here is some feed back from MIKE ,,,,
I grew up in New York City. In 1989 I was halfway through high school. The Central Park Five were my contemporaries. I didn't know them, but I knew people who knew some of them. I was sure I knew kids like them.
And I knew they were guilty.
I recently watched the Ken Burns' documentary, The Central Park Five, on PBS. It is still hard to digest the magnitude of this wrongful conviction. This wasn't an obscure case, like so many of the death row inmates in Texas or Georgia who are convicted outside the public glare. This was the biggest trial in the country. All of us were watching. Almost all of us believed the police, the district attorney, the media.
There were skeptics who believed in their innocence. At the time, they were pilloried. And yet, they were right. And we were wrong.
It is not easy to be humble. I'm not even sure if I think it's a virtue to always be humble. But it is good to be humbled. To be reminded that there are things that we simply know to be true, so much so that we don't even question our certitude.
I believed Bill Clinton, not Linda Tripp. I believed Saddam had WMDs. I believed the Central Park Five were guilty.
I'm not gullible. I'm skeptical of authority. But I also can be skeptical of those challenging authority. This makes life more complicated. Ideally, it means evaluating and determining "the truth" on more of a case by case basis.
For my friends at the ACLU, a case like the Central Park Five reinforces their pre-existing cynicism about law enforcement. For true believers who support the police department, no amount of evidence will convince them that these teens were innocent.
Reality is our challenge. Reality tells us that most people who are arrested are guilty, but some are innocent. How do we remain wary of police misconduct, of police fallibility, without presuming it?
My experience as a teenager made me predisposed to believe in the guilt of the Central Park Five. At that time, New York was a violent city. More than 2,000 people were murdered each year. When you went outside your home, you were vigilant at all times. Walking down the street, riding the subway, at the school yard or park. Even in school. You kept your head up. You watched for people you thought might be mentally ill, or violent. You avoided danger.
Above all else, you avoided teenagers. Group of four, five, six or more teenagers were the worst. Mostly they would just hassle people, but hassling could move to robbery or assault in an instant. And once it started, there wasn't much one could do about it. 10 seconds. 20 seconds. 30 at most. Then it was over and they were gone.
The Central Park Five were said to be "wilding" that night. Running through the park, harassing, assaulting, and robbing people. "Wilding" was real. In 1989 it happened frequently. Usually it wasn't reported. Sometimes police would intervene.
I usually travelled with friends. You were safer with your friends. Being alone meant you were vulnerable.
Kids ran in posses, which were like mini-gangs of friends, sometimes thugs and wanna-be thugs. In an earlier era, someone would have called them "juvenile delinquents." Most were relatively harmless. Other were harmless, until they weren't. Others existed largely to cause trouble.
The police harassed teenagers all the time. I wasn't a big kid. I was white. I didn't go out looking for trouble. But even I was harassed by police. Questioned. Threatened. Intimidated. It never went farther than that, but for many kids it did. Police abuse of power was commonplace.
And yet, I still didn't believe the Central Park Five were innocent. I didn't trust the police, but i knew those kids. I had walked blocks out of my way to avoid them. Gotten off subway trains. Walked into stores or hotel lobbies. I was more scared of them than i was of the cops.
It didn't matter that Public Enemy was my favorite group. That the Autobiography of Malcolm X was my favorite book. That i knew all the lyrics to "Straight Outta Compton."
Yes, I believed racism was endemic in many of our institutions. But I knew the Central Park Five were guilty. I was sure of it.
Follow Mik Moore on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mikrmoore
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 2:02PM
DAVID JOHNSON
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the New York City Police Department refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing in the case despite the obvious illegalities of the investigation, which included bringing 16-year-old Kharey Wise to the crime scene and attempting to trick him into leaving DNA traces behind, according to Mr. Wise and Yusef Salaam during a Q&A session following a screening of the film. At least one of the prosecutors refuses to even admit that she convicted the wrong guys and the city stubbornly fights a civil suit brought by the five for compensation for the 40 years they collectively spent behind bars for a crime they did not commit. The film also digs into the parallel stories of a racist and retributive public opinion that so quickly condemned the innocent teenagers and the corporate media's facilitation of this atrocity that, once combined, rip the veneer off any idea of a post-racial U.S. of A.
Visually, the film, mostly due to its reliance on grainy real-time newsroom footage, appears to describe a New York of long ago, which provides the audience with a measure of psychic safety from the facts of the case, which might otherwise provoke a profound sense of guilt relating to the public's role in the convictions and their spoken and unspoken beliefs about the guilt of the suspects. But the truth remains that the law enforcement and prosecutory practices that served to steamroll these five boys into prison are still widely used and that the general public continues to support a criminal justice system that retains the image of young men of color as Enemy No. 1 despite mounting evidence that this assignation is catalyzed more by institutionalized and unconscious sociological factors (racism) than disparities in criminal behaviors between demographic groups.
In New York City, a small fraction of legal cases go to trial -- in 2000 there were 412 criminal trials engendered by 220,000 arrests -- with the vast majority of cases resolved through a prosecutor-driven pleading system that typically weighs the likelihood of conviction rather than actual innocence or guilt. Due to the unbalanced power dynamic between prosecutors and defense attorneys some innocent people choose to plead "guilty" rather than run the risk of being found guilty later on by the court, which typically penalizes you for seeking due process by adding additional criminal charges. No one seems to mind this type of perjury, even though judges have to sometimes coach defendants through the part of the plea where they are forced to admit their role in the crime whether they were involved or not. While this practice unclogs the court calendar -- if just 2 percent of arrests went to trial there would not be enough judges, lawyers or courtrooms to adjudicate them in under speedy trial rules -- it facilitates an unusual type of justice. The idea that innocent people will have justice served through the court system is generally a false one.
Law enforcement practices are the single greatest contributor to the number of innocent people arrested, who as we have seen may later be found guilty whether at trial or through a plea agreement despite their innocence. Around 50 percent of suspects confess under the duress of interrogation. While most people do not falsely incriminate themselves, it is not as uncommon as one might think. Of more than 300 people exonerated from death row based on DNA evidence, nearly one in four had provided a false confession prior to their sentencing.
As we saw in The Central Park Five, police use psychologically coercive and deceptive tactics, especially with young people, despite evidence that suggests that these procedures are unreliable. In order to force a confession police are trained to use techniques that include offering false evidence, preventing suspects from speaking for protracted periods of time, the minimization of the crime and by extending false promises of liberty. One study of proven false confessions showed that the average duration of interrogations was 16.3 hours. These practices appear to be the norm despite studies that have shown that up to 44 percent of exonerated juveniles had made false confessions, with one group of exonerated 12 to 15-year-olds falsely confessing at even higher rates. It is the effort of law enforcement, the length and intensity of the interrogation, which is most likely to produce confessions, not the guilt of the suspect.
People have only minimal protections from police officers following arrest and young people are especially vulnerable to coercion due to misunderstandings about their rights and their desire to please authority figures. Meanwhile, later on at trial, these misunderstandings -- the perception that the young person did not try to avoid their responsibility for the crime -- can be used again against them as an example of not showing remorse, which is often a factor in deciding to charge juveniles as adults.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in Roper vs. Simmons, 2005, recognized the psychological vulnerability of young people and the incomplete development of their minds as compared to adults, but no distinction is typically made by police during interrogations. Among the most popular interrogation methods is the Reid Technique, which includes behavioral analysis aimed at discerning guilt through body language and evasive speech, though these cues have little efficacy in this task, especially with juveniles. The United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child also illuminates the psychological differences between adults and children -- declaring life imprisonment as inappropriate for juveniles -- and all nations in the world save two, the U.S. and Somolia, have agreed to the treaty.
The context for the errors made by law enforcement and attorneys during the Central Park Jogger Case were indicative of the cresting wave of punitiveness for juvenile crimes that described the late 1980s and 1990s. Before the end of that decade, nearly half of all court-involved juveniles were sentenced to some form of incarceration -- a great many for small crimes: misdemeanors or probation violations. Across the United States, each year 200,000 minors are tried as adults so as to empower judges and prosecutors to levy hasher sentences in order to keep young people confined for a longer period of time.
Since 1970 the number of people imprisoned in the U.S. has increased by 600 percent, from less than 330,000 to more than 2.3 million people today, with the fastest growing demographic being women. At the same time the prison system has shifted its focus away from rehabilitation and has instead become a warehouse for stigmatized sections of the population that severely limits their abilities to re-acculturate following release. The racial disparities are well-documented.
All of this comes at a tremendous cost both financially and to public safety as the most significant indicator for arrest is previous incarceration. It cost New Yorkers $3.7 billion in 2010 to pay for their prison system -- not counting for central-administration costs such as department of corrections employees benefits and pensions. With more than 2.3 million people behind bars and an additional five million under supervised release programs such as parole and probation -- which typically remove many of the rights granted to people who have not been court-involved, today the United States Criminal Justice System controls nearly as many people as are imprisoned in the penal institutions of every other nation in the world combined (9.9 million). By no statistic are we the safest nation in the world.
Meanwhile our perception of safety is so skewed by sensational stories such as the case of the Central Park Five and conscious and unconscious racial animosity that we are blinded by what is actually most likely to do us harm. We are most fearful of a mythologized criminal -- a young black man, selling drugs and gang-affiliated who will kill us as we walk in the street -- and our entire criminal justice calculus is based on this largely unrealistic fear. Yet of the 14,831 homicides committed in 2007, just 3.9 percent were drug-related -- roughly 600 people -- compared to the 10,000 deaths in drunk-driving-related accidents, for example.
While NYPD officers, on-duty or off, are largely applauded for gunning down robbers and others who are carrying weapons, can you imagine the public getting behind a campaign for officers to shoot people suspected of drunk driving dead on sight? We have such general reverence for the police yet in New York City, without even mentioning their on-the-job crimes some of which are described above, more than 100 officers are arrested each year for crimes ranging from drug smuggling, gun-running, murder, and rape, according to the Internal Affairs Bureau. The department is so adverse to accountability that Kevin Boss, a white NYPD officer who killed 22-year-old Patrick Bailey on Halloween of 1997, was given back his gun and less than two years later was one of the four officers who murdered Amadou Diallo.
We allow these abuses to continue because we are either willfully ignorant or consciously or unconsciously willing to accept a certain amount of police and prosecutorial misconduct to protect our perception of safety as long as it is not at our expense. While the public tide is perhaps turning on issues such as stop and frisk and order-maintenance policing, generally speaking we've made a social agreement that we are alright with the lives of young men being ruined to buoy our perception of safety -- this is a price that we are willing to pay. In many ways The Central Park Five is a history lesson and cautionary tale of the types of police and prosecutorial misconduct that is possible without effective oversight or appropriate checks and balances to power. Unfortunately the NYPD and district attorney's office shown in the film have changed little since those days and we all will continue to pay a price for that.
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 2:06PM
DAVID JOHNSON
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I asked what the permanent solution is and no one would say, but David still posts more whining and complaining instead of a solution.
Since you all don’t have a solution, but I have a permanent solution then why not join me and stop the whining and complaining. We are making ourselves look stupid.
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 2:18PM
Harry Watley
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again, MrJohnson --- GREAT post------
sorry but a commentorMom mentioned me?
sweetIrma, Wrties?+++
@ROBERT....PLANET STUCK ON STUPID SENDS .... YOU THEIR HIGHEST PRAISES FOR YET ONE MORE TIME TURNING SOMETHING RELATED TO OUR COMMUNITY INTO SOME THING OUT TO CAUSE DIVISION AND HATE. (NUP) Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 1:42PM Irma Robinson
OUR COMMUNITY?
AMERICAN JUSTICE and LIARS in court on bothSides are OUR COMMUNITY!
you and your 'blackWhite' ignorance are the DIVIDERS and HATERS.....!!!!!
It was ignorantRacism that made the 'Justice' LIARS
----and it was ignorantRacism that made the 4 LYING confessors "write/say" they DID it
The Muslim Yusef Salaam is the ONLY one 'Justice OR Confesso4'
----that did not DIVIDE the TRUTH
CAN YOU read and UNDERSTAND anything?
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 6:18PM
powell robert
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Hello Irma,
It is hard for me to think that you all heard me when you all continue whining and complaining instead of think tanking up a permanent solution. Obviously, when stupid people don’t make a sincere effort to resolve their problems they will continue to whine and complain as we stupid Black Americans constantly do am I right.
WHAT THE HELL IS THE SOLUTION people?
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 6:37PM
Harry Watley
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THIS IS WHY NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU HARRY ,,,you go around saying you are the answer to black america but you are clueless as to what we need to do ,,,,,
NOW Harry you got the floor ,,,,,lets say we all Pick you as the prophet ,,WHAT THE HELL WE GONNA DO AFTER THAT ???? COME ON HARRY IM SURE YOU GOT THE ANSWER ,,
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 6:56PM
DAVID JOHNSON
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Stupid Irma,
I am not a Black Africa prophet. What I am is Black America’s first genuine prophet. How many time do I need to go over it that Black Americans are not African people is unreal.
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 8:18PM
Harry Watley
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Hello David,
You say that I am clueless as to what Black Americans needs to do. That is not true! I’ve been telling you all that we need to desire to be a sovereign people in a country of our own.
I said that you need to give up your old way of thinking about religion, politics and social concepts.
It all starts from believing that God could send us Black Americans a genuine prophet as God so did with the Children of Israel and Moses and as God did for Prophet Mohammed and the Arabian people or as God did for the Hebrew people and Prophet Abraham.
I have an abundance of facts and similarities working on my side that you all have no good reasons to deny me.
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 8:29PM
Harry Watley
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and thats your answer ,,,,what a joke ,,ok whatever gth!
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 8:40PM
DAVID JOHNSON
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David,
Yes David that is all you need to do is desire to be a free man in a country of your own? I can understand that is going to be difficult for you to do and why you think that I am joking is because you told me a couple of years ago that you don’t want Black Americans to become a sovereign people. I am sorry to say that only a slave minded person would say something like that David.
The fact that sovereignty is our only permanent solution and you don’t want it means that you are stuck in the middle not going anywhere. See my point about you?
If I were you I would reconsider my previous thoughts of not wanting sovereignty and admit that sovereignty is our only permanent solution and help me to gather our people unto me.
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 9:03PM
Harry Watley
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HARRY YOUR SAYING THE SOMETHING ON ALL MY BLOGS AND THATS NOT GOOD SO IF YOU WANT TO START TO pollute,,,MY POST WITH YOUR MADNESS IM GOING TO DELETE YOU BS ,,,
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED YOUR TIME WITH ME HAS EXPIRED,,,,,TRUST ME !
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 9:17PM
DAVID JOHNSON
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Okay David, have it your way for now.
Saturday, April 20th 2013 at 10:09PM
Harry Watley
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SPEAK OUR FIRST BLACKAFRICA PROPHET...
SPEAK...SPEAK....SPEAK...SPEAK...SPEAK...SPEAK...SPEAK...SPEAK (S-M-I-L-E)
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
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@ROBERT, AFTER TWO DAYS I AM STILL WAITING FOR YOU AND JAKE TO STOP RUNNING FROM ME ON TH ELAST BLOG YOU POSTED ROBERT!!! (OTFLMAO)(S-M-I-L-E)
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
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@HARRY, WE HEARD YOU...WE HEARD YOU...WE HEARD YOU! (NUP!!!)
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
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@ROBERT, HARRY PLANET STUCK ON STUPID SENDS THE BOTH OF YOU THEIR HIGHEST PRAISES FOR YET ONE MORE TIME TURNING SOMETHING RELATED TO OUR COMMUNITY INTO SOME THING OUT TO CAUSE DIVISION AND HATE. (NUP)
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
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HARRY YOU HAVE NOT ANSWERED DAVID'S QUESTION...YOU STILL ARE STUCK ON STUPID IN NEVER , NEVER LAND AND WILL ONLY BE ABLE TO USE JEWISH CHRIST 'S MOSES AS YOU EXCUSE FOR NEVER BEING ABLE TO SAY WHAT YOU WILL DO BEYOND CALLING PEOPLE NEGATIVE NAMES... PEOPLE NEED, NO HARRY YOU WILL NEED FOOD, WATER AND SHELTER AND SO FAR YOU DON'T HAVE THE SLIGHTEST IDEA HOW YOU WILL BE ABLE TO FURNISH YOUR OWN SURVIVAL NEEDS UNLESS YOU REALLY BELIEVE YOU CAN EAT AND DRINK CALLING NEGATIVE NAMES. (SMILE)...BYE HARRY...I WILL BE BACK WHEN YOU ANSWER DAVID'SQUESTION SO DON'T LET ME KEEP YOU HERE TRYING TO USE ME TO THROW OFF THETHEME OF THE POST. (SMILE)
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
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YET ONE MORE MAJOR, MAJOR TEACHING MOMENT FOR MANKIND. (SMILE)
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
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