In January 2002, when four of the five had already completed their sentences, there was a shocking twist. (The police described the laboratory tests as “inconclusive.”) In 1990, five defendants-Yusuf Salaam, Antron McCray, Korey (Kharey) Wise, Kevin Richardson, and Raymond Santana-were convicted in two separate trials, and the convictions were upheld on appeal. In this charged atmosphere, the news that several 15- and 16-year-old boys had confessed to the assault on the jogger and to several other attacks did not leave room for too many questions-even though no physical evidence tied the boys to any of the crimes. Newspaper headlines shouted about a “wolfpack” of teens gone “wilding” in the park (a word that may have come from a misunderstanding of a detainee’s reference to “wilin’,” slang for “hanging out”). The horrific assault shocked the crime-weary city, and the jogger became a symbol of fears of rampant urban violence-fears that were often racially tinged but were also shared by many blacks and Hispanics. (The jogger, who publicly identified herself as Trisha Meili years later, regained consciousness after 12 days.) An examination showed that the victim, a 28-year-old Wall Street executive and avid jogger, had been raped and savagely beaten, with multiple skull fractures the initial prognosis was that she would die or remain permanently comatose. A few hours later, a young woman was found unconscious and naked in a wooded area of the park.
On April 19, 1989, more than 30 teenagers from East Harlem roamed through Manhattan’s Central Park late at night, many of them engaging in various kinds of mayhem such as assaulting and robbing joggers and bicyclists the police soon entered the park in response to calls from victims and began making arrests. The basic facts of the case are well-known. But When They See Us, and the response to it, raises many other questions about perceptions of race and crime, attitudes toward sexual violence, and the way cultural attitudes have and haven’t changed over the last three decades. There are real questions about the film’s accuracy. The 72-year-old Fairstein, dropped by her publisher and pressured into resigning from several boards, has hit back in an interview and a Wall Street Journal op-ed, calling the film a “basket of lies.” The repercussions from the series, created by prominent African-American filmmaker Ava DuVernay, have included possibly fatal damage to the career and reputation of former sex crimes prosecutor Linda Fairstein, a onetime feminist hero recast as a racist villain.
#WHEN THEY SEE US TV#
This insincerity undermines the TV show's whole endeavor.The Netflix four-part miniseries When They See Us, a dramatization of the story of the Central Park Five-the black and Hispanic teenagers convicted in the 1989 rape of a white jogger in New York and later exonerated by a confession and DNA evidence-has revived intense interest in the 30-year-old case, which taps into the current political mood with its heightened sensitivity to racial issues. I also feel like I need to research what really happened, because it is clear that this TV show is more interested in influencing future elections and spinning socio-political myths than exploring any kind of truth. Having watched the four episodes, I am left believing that many African Americans have, in the past, been treated unfairly by the legal system and the police, but I already thought that. Personally I wish they were portrayed more realistically as most teenagers from all walks of life are more rebellious than the children depicted in this show. The actors did a fine job of portraying themselves as the most sheltered and innocently naive children ever to be allowed to walk freely in one of the most dangerous rape and murder capitals of the world. The problem with this TV show is that it has a clear political agenda that guides its loose relationship with real life events. This TV show should not be about Donald Trump. Although I do not agree with the death penalty, this seems like a Trump was reflecting the views of many fearful Americans wanting to help to stop the epidemic of terrible crimes striking New York such as this brutal rape in a public park. In response to a violent crime epidemic Trump called for harsher sentencing, the death penalty, and more police. What made me uncomfortable was the shoehorning in of references to Donald Trump, who was clearly unaware that the five boys were to be later found innocent of the crimes they had confessed to. As a drama and a piece of fiction, it is quite well made. What made me uncomfortable was the shoehorning in of references to Donald Trump, who was clearly unaware that This is a dramatized and fictionalized account of five cases of false imprisonment.
This is a dramatized and fictionalized account of five cases of false imprisonment.
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