Central Park Five
Abstract 

The Central Park jogger case, often referred to as the Central Park Five for the five men who were wrongly convicted of the assault, is a brutal assault that occurred in Central Park in 1989.  The victim was severely assaulted, which resulted in her losing her memory surrounding the attack.  The police identified at least 14 suspects, and a number of them were convicted of the assault, despite a lack of substantial evidence linking them to the crime.  Five of the men, the Central Park Five, were exonerated when evidence revealed that they were actually innocent, but this did not occur until the men had spent years in jail.  This essay investigates the Central Park Five, covering information about the victim, about the trial against the defendants, about their lawsuit for their wrongful incarcerations, recent developments in their case, and the role that President Trump has played in their case.  

Introduction

In 1989, Americans were introduced to a new concept when they were told that the brutal assault and rape of Trisha Meili by an unknown number of assailants was the result of “wilding.”  This concept suggested that roaming groups of teenagers were going through the park, assaulting suspects.  It was suspected that this group was very large; more than 30 teenagers were believed to be in the group.  In addition to assaults, the group was suspected of other crimes, and police actually began to apprehend suspects around 9pm that night.  Meili was found around 1:30 that morning, and the police hunt intensified.  The police eventually took at least 14 suspects into custody, and eventually charged six of the boys with assault, robbery, riot, rape, sexual abuse, and attempted murder.  The boys who were charged include Steve Lopez, who was 14; Antron McCray, who was 15; Kevin Richardson, who was 14; Yusef Salaam, who was 15; Raymond Santana, who was 14; and Korey Wise, who was 16.  While Meili’s assault was the most brutal one, it was not the first similar assault in Central Park; there had been similar attacks on eight other victims.  In fact, the six boys were charged with attempted murder of an unrelated victim, John Loughlin.  

On April 21st, the police held a press conference stating that they had apprehended suspects in the attacks on the victims in Central Park.  The police stated that these suspects were part of a gang of teenagers who had been wilding in Central Park, attacking random strangers in a series of seemingly motiveless crimes.  They stated that the suspects had used the term wilding.  However, the whole usage of this terms seems to have been a misunderstanding of the term “wild thing” to mean sex. 

The public response to the attacks was unusual.  Normally, the names of juvenile defendants are kept secret unless a court has made a decision to try the juvenile as an adult.  However, the media ignored its own rule in this case, not only printing the names of the Central Park Five, but also their photos and addresses.  This led to significant threats against the juveniles, as well as their neighbors.  In addition, the racial overtones of the coverage led to some emerging support for the young men, with some leaders of the black community suggesting that the young men, most of whom were black, were being charged with sexual assault of a white woman because of their race.  

Trump’s Comments

To understand the racial overtones of the case against the young men, it is important to take a closer look at how Donald Trump’s actions influenced the prosecution.  On May 1, 1989, Trump took out a full-page ad in each of the city’s four major newspapers.  Trump’s advertisement made it clear that he thought the death penalty was appropriate for all of the accused, even though they were juveniles.  He even called for the deprivation of civil liberties from the accused, sating, “Criminals must be told that their CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS” (Trump, 1989). 

New York City was already horrified by the accounts of wilding in Central Park, as well as the very graphic details that were emerging about the alleged gang rape of Meili.  In fact, it would be fair to describe the entire country as horrified by the account of the attack as it was described by the New York Police Department and eventually the prosecution.  However, many people, including one of the Central Park Five, Salaam, believe that it was with these ads that the city really began to presume that the boys were guilty.  He believed that the inflammatory statements helped push their unfair prosecution and put the defendants’ families in danger. 

Central Park Five

Of the six boys who were charged, one, Steve Lopez, pleaded guilty to the charges in exchange for a lesser sentence.  The other five who were charged maintained their innocence, but the state did have some questionable evidence against them.  Anton McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise, the five juveniles who would eventually become known as the Central Park Five, had all confessed to taking some part in the events of the night.  All of the boys, except for Salaam, had confessed to playing a part in the sexual assault, but the other boys’ confessions implicated Salaam, as well.  

This evidence was in the form of confessions that each of the defendants had made during police interrogations.  However, there were always problems with these confessions.  First, the boys were all juveniles when they were interrogated, with some of them in their young teens, and the...…hospital setting.  Even when she was released from the hospital, she was unable to perform normal daily functions like speaking, walking, or even rudimentary self-care.  

Eventually, Meili was able to return to her work as an investment banker.  She published a memoir about the ordeal, coming out to the world as the survivor of the Central Park assault. She began working as a sexual assault advocate, working with victims and as an inspirational speaker.  Meili continues to believe that more than one person was involved in her brutal physical and sexual assault, though she still cannot recall details of the assault, itself.  There is no question that Reyes was involved in the assaults; he was a DNA match for the semen sample found in Meili and had details that only someone at the assault would know, Meili does not believe he was the only perpetrator.  Her doctors agree that her injuries were not consistent with a lone attacker, and even point out that she had hand prints in different sizes on her body.  She was opposed to the city and state settling the lawsuits with the Central Park Five, and wanted to hear the additional details that would have come out at trial (Welsh, Schiffman, and Francis, 2019).  

Recent Developments

Even though the Central Park Five have had their convictions vacated and won settlements for their wrongful incarcerations, a number of people are still convinced that they are guilty.  Beginning in 2014, right wing pundit Ann Coulter began speaking out about their guilt (Coulter, 2014).  Edward Conlon, a New York City Detective that was involved in the investigation of the case, suggested that the youth had made incriminatory statements outside of their confessions (Conlon, 2014).  Most significantly, Donald Trump continued his charge on the Central Park Five, writing in an opinion article in the New York Daily News that the Central Park Five was probably guilty, based on his understanding of the facts as presented by the detectives on the case (Trump, 2014).  He doubled down on this position while campaigning for President, when he asserted that the Central Park Five were guilty and should not have had their convictions vacated (Holmes, 2017).  This led to widespread condemnation from a number of sources, including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans.  

Other developments have included legal changes that are aimed at preventing the type of false confessions in this case.  In fact, many states now require recordings of an entire confession.  In addition, the case has brought awareness to actual innocence claims, and each of the Central Park Five is active, in some way, in advocating for serious reforms in the criminal justice system, many working with the Innocence Project.  They were successful in helping pass a law in New York requiring that interrogations be videotaped.