One spring evening in 1989, a group of around 30 teenagers were hanging out in Central Park, New York. Some of them were causing serious trouble including badly hurting others in the park and harassing homeless people. The same night, a 28-year-old white woman, Trisha Meili, was out jogging in the park. She was found beaten and raped and was in a coma for 12 days. Five young black and Hispanic men, aged between 14 and 16, would be found guilty and jailed for the crime.
They became known as the Central Park Five. But they never committed the crime. The boys were interrogated for seven hours without their parents, before four made video-taped confessions to detectives. All admitted they touched or restrained Meili while one or more of the others assaulted her.
As the DNA evidence from semen found at the scene didn’t match any of the five boys, prosecutors relied solely on the initial interrogations. But the Five took back those statements saying they’d been coerced by police into giving false confessions.
Corrupt policing and the prosecutor Linda Fairstein stole years of their lives that they spent in jail, simply because they happened to be black and in Central Park on the night of a crime. That politicians cannot clearly see the right and wrong in this case all these years later as we enter the race for the presidential office.
Ava Duvernay’s film shown on Netflix, When They See Us, which dramatised the lives of the men accused and exonerated of the murder, has led to a re-examination of the case. After much criticism, Democrat senator Amy Klobuchar announced through her presidential campaign team that she will be returning funds donated to her by Central Park Five prosecutor Linda Fairstein.
Presidential candidate and former mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg has also been criticised recently for his position on the case. A CBS reporter asked Bloomberg on the campaign trail about his earlier support for the prosecutors and police when he said they “acted in good faith”.
Bloomberg said in response, “I really have no idea. I’ve read in the paper, I’ve been away from government for a long time. So apparently, the courts have ruled that they did not commit it, commit a crime, and that’s the final word and we just have to accept that. It isn’t a question of what anybody believes.”
It is important to note that Bloomberg was the New York mayor when the men were exonerated and when they sued the city for mishandling the case. His selective amnesia is being questioned and Ava Duvernay replied in a tweet, “Sir. This will not work in 2020. The non-answers. The evasion. No, sir. Take the next opportunity to be clear about what you knew, what you did and what you did not do in this case.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump seemed convinced the teens were guilty. Back then he spent $85,000 on four full-page adverts in New York newspapers titled: “Bring Back The Death Penalty, Bring Back Our Police!”. He wrote: “I want to hate these murderers and I always will. I am not looking to psychoanalyse or understand them, I am looking to punish them.” In an interview with CNN at the time, he said: “Maybe hate is what we need if we’re gonna get something done.”
Seems the misjustice that took place over 30 years ago is coming back to haunt some politicians.
Gordon is the former president and chief executive of BMMI. He can be reached at gordonboyle@hotmail.com