The Story of The Central Park 5
By Vanessa Wilson
Thumbnail Image by Thomas Evans
When They See Us is a mini-series directed by Ava DuVernay. The film portrays the horrific story of the 1989 New York “Central Park 5” case. The story about the Central Park 5 is about 5 teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of raping a 28-year-old jogger in Central Park. The 5 teenagers consist of 14-year-old Kevin Richardson, 14-year-old Raymond Santana, 15-year-old Antron McCray, 15-year-old Yusef Salaam and finally 16-year-old Korey Wise.
The film is a 4 part series each episode well displaying the traumatic and disturbing experiences the teens had to go through. The series explains that on the night of April 19th, 1989 Trisha Meili went for a jog in the night at Central Park. Just after 9:00 pm Trisha was assaulted and raped. The 5 boys were known to cause a ruckus in previous times however not this time.
The boys were all questioned, however during the questioning the officers manipulated them and McCray, Richardson, Santana and Wise all signed documents and videotape confessions of them saying they committed the crime, however, Salaam wrote a confession and didn’t sign it. In those endless hours of interrogation, the officers promised if the young boys confessed they would be able to go home that night, but that is not how it turned out.
The five young boys were all charged with rape, attempted murder and assault. Despite zero of the evidence even making sense and the whole timeline does not seem to add up. Four out of the five got moved to young offender facilities and Korey Wise was charged as an adult and was immediately moved to Rikers Island prison. In this time in the case, Meili starts to gain consciousness however she could not seem to remember the events of April 19th.
By the time the police charged the young boys, and the information about their sentencing became extremely important. Raymond Santana served five years in jail, Kevin Richardson served five and a half years in jail, Antron McCray served six years in jail, Yusef Salaam served seven years in jail and finally Korey Wise served fourteen years on Rikers Island.
The whole case at this point seems very confusing and not direct, and that is exactly how it was in the timeline case is quite inconsistent. A lot of things didn’t add up in the end and finally, in May of 2002, Matias Reyes confessed of the assault and rape of Trisha Meili. Reyes was sentenced to 33 years - life. At the end of all this mess of being wrongfully convicted and the “Central Park 5” missing the core years of their lives were gone, because of clear manipulation and racism and they will never get those years back. New York awarded them $41 million and the five of them also sued New York State and in 2016 received $3.9 million. In the end, those 5 young boys were apart of the most iconic wrongfully convicted cases of all time and now they have made ultimate history.
