By Julia N.
On December 12, at around 5 o’clock in the evening, we went to Lauren’s house to watch Ken Burns’ documentary on the Central Park Five. The Central Park Five were a group of boys (four black, one Latino) who were arrested for the rape and severe attack of a white female jogger on April 19, 1989. Trisha Meili, the victim, otherwise referred to as the central park jogger, went out for a run that night around 9pm. Hours later, her body was found in a coma. She had a 75 percent blood loss and a fierce blow to the head. After immediately being taken to Metropolitan Hospital, news reporters snatched up her story for headlines around the world.
Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, and Yusef Salaam were just normal kids hanging out in a group of twenty-five boys hanging out at the park. The other boys were raising havoc and beat up a biker and two others in the park that night. These five boys were arrested and brought down to the Central Park precinct. Just as they were about to release them, a detective at the scene of the crime called the precinct to hold the five for further questioning. They were interrogated aggressively for 14 to 30 hours by police. Being exhausted and just wanting to go home, they submitted to the police who forced them to write written accounts of what had happened and used the names of the four other boys as well. All being innocent, each made up a story with false facts and accusations. Police kept telling them to confess, then they could go home. Each boy was videotaped confessing to having some part in the rape of the jogger. With these confessions, most common sense and facts were thrown out the window.
It did not matter that the DNA evidence implicated none of them, that the crime scene indicated a single rapist or that their confessions conflicted with each other. They had confessed and therefore were guilty. Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana being fourteen at the time, were sentenced has youths and served six years each. The fifth, Korey Wise, was sixteen at the time of the event and was given an adult sentence. He served almost twelve years in Rikers Island.
Watching this movie has connected two of the organizations we have been working with. Relating to Jordyn Lexton, this movie has inspired me to help raise the age of adult responsibility to 18, instead of 16 because of Korey Wise. The movie also connects to the Innocence Project, because the Central Park Five were all wrongly convicted, and the purpose of the organization is to get innocent people’s sentences overturned.
