Die Fünf vom Central Park

I remember the skeptical tone of one news report I read in 2002, when the Central Park Five ("CP5") were exonerated due to Matias Reyes's confession to the 1989 assault and rape of Trisha Meili. The majority of people (including myself) who gave the story a cursory glance seemed doubtful about a serial rapist who was already serving a life sentence--i.e., with nothing left to lose by making a false confession--meeting one of the CP5 by chance in prison and taking the blame in order to clear the names of several young men who must have been properly convicted some years earlier. "What did Reyes get in return?" many of us wondered, ignoring the facts that all of the CP5 had already completed their sentences for the rape and near-murder of Meili--though one of them was incarcerated for a later drug trafficking offense and just happened to meet Reyes in prison--and that Reyes's DNA matched the profile found at the crime scene.

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE is very important in showing the other side of the story. It definitely has its slant, as any documentary will, but it makes a strong argument for the basic fact that five teenaged boys were convicted solely because of coerced and contradictory confessions to the crime after hours of being interrogated and played off against one another with a complete disregard for the lack of direct evidence against them. It clearly shows how this can and does happen far more often than many of us want to think. It's also very revealing of how dangerous public emotion and outrage, regardless of its focus, can be.

Unfortunately, the NYPD, the prosecutors in the case, and everyone else responsible for the convictions declined to speak to Directors Ken and Sarah Burns, which is very telling but also limits the scope of the film. THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE is dominated by interviews with the CP5 and their relatives, obviously a crucial ingredient, but it becomes repetitive. There are, however, important comments from then-Mayor Ed Koch, who was all for conviction and serious punishment of the CP5 in 1989 but has now apparently changed his mind. The brief input by NYC historian Craig Steven Wilder and several others also adds a great deal.

One of the strongest aspects of THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE is the brief sociological perspective of New York City's racially polarized, have/have-not environment during the 1970s and 80s. Not only is it elucidating in its own right, it also provides background and something in the way of explanation for the wrongful conviction of the CP5.

Some of the more negative reviews have criticized THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE simply for being "boring," and at the risk of sounding crass, I see what they mean. While this is an important miscarriage of justice that should not be ignored, the repetitiveness and narrow scope of the film will inevitably limit its mass appeal. Anyone with a serious interest in this case and wrongful convictions in general, however, will probably find its two-hour length well-worth sitting through.

More analysis of the details that led to the wrongful convictions would have been helpful, e.g., the term "wilding." One of the CP5 confessed to police that he and a number of others were "wilding" in Central Park on the night of the crime. The term "wilding" is roughly equivalent to "raising hell," the usual term-of-choice when I was a kid in the late '70s/early '80s. "Raising hell" could, of course, refer to anything from driving fast, drinking beer, and talking loudly and irreverently (as we meant it) to violent felonies. More discussion of how misinterpretations of the loose term "wilding" were a critical factor in the conviction would have added some depth to this documentary.

As someone who remembers this case well, it's pretty sobering to be faced with these five men 23 years after the fact recounting their version of events that occurred when they were teens and hard not to feel sorry for them. Worse, one can't help but wonder how such a miscarriage of justice could have happened with everybody watching. All I can think is that these boys were handy scapegoats for a decade of out-of-control crime and violence in New York and they became sacrificial lambs. Somebody had to pay the price. These five just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, admittedly doing the wrong thing (running with a mob of teens committing random attacks on white joggers and bicyclists), and the cops needed convenient suspects who were young and vulnerable enough to be manipulated into confessing to the most serious crime that occurred that night. Their convictions and a handful of other high-profile incidents during the Dinkins administration paved the way for the election of Rudolph Giuliani as mayor and a new era of proactive law enforcement and a relentless stop-and-frisk campaign aimed at black and Latino men in the city's poorer communities.

Does the film make its case without flaws? No. The deck is too stacked. They should have allowed some representative of the police or D.A.'s office to explain themselves. Michael F. Armstrong, counsel for the NYPD, says he spent half-a-day being interviewed on camera for the film and was then not included in the final cut. Some attention should have been given to what these five boys were doing in the park that night and what other crimes they themselves might have been implicated in. Yes, they describe some acts they saw being committed by other boys and either outright deny their involvement or couch it in vague terms. I think it would have been good to know if the police had direct evidence of these boys' participation in other crimes that night. For one thing, it would mean these kids might not have been the saints they're made out to be, which of course doesn't justify false accusations and wrongful convictions, as the most vocal critics of this film seem to think, but it means recognizing a significant gray area here. If they actually did participate in the mob violence that night, some attention might have been usefully paid to the whole issue of how seemingly otherwise good kids from poor but stable homes with fathers present in their lives can get caught up in that kind of lawlessness.

Also, more importantly, they should have had some expert on hand to address the whole phenomenon of false or coerced confessions and give their objective assessment of this particular case and perhaps give other known examples of established false confessions, just to provide some context and answer those critics who stand by the notion of absolute guilt based on confession. It's touched on in a couple of the interviews, but not by a recognized expert on the issue and not in any depth.

Still, it's a powerful piece and has far fewer Ken Burns-style gimmicks than we see in his other films. He manages to stay out of his own way for much of the time and let the interview subjects have their say. Maybe that's a result of having directorial collaborators.

I think this documentary was done well overall. It captures an era in US history when New York City and many US cities were in rapid decline due to the economy, drugs, crime, white flight, etc… What happened with the Central Park Five was the culmination of many factors that ultimately led to their conviction then exoneration. To put things in context, in 1989 NYC was in the midst of an unprecedented crime wave. In 1989 there were 2,244 murders and 5,479 rapes in NYC. In 1989 and even to this day, crime statistics show 90% of all crime in New York is perpetrated by blacks and other minorities, including the criminal that was ultimately convicted of brutally raping and almost beating to death the female white jogger. At the time, Central Park seemed like a piece of calm and safety amid the crime and chaos of NY. The night of the incident, when police got reports of a gang of colored teenagers beating and terrorizing people in the park, they quickly picked up these five kids who were in the area. Under great public pressure to get the sociopath(s) responsible for this heinous crime, the police threw out their code of ethics and justice and unbelievably contrived and then cajoled false confessions out of five naive and susceptible teens and their unwitting parents. Although lacking any physical evidence and with conflicting stories from the teens, with their own contrived video taped confessions, the five teens (scapegoats) were convicted and sentenced to prison. Ultimately, another minority in prison for murder confessed to the crime and the 5 teens were vindicated as being innocent. What this documentary shows is many parts of a society in decay…from the break down of the justice system, the manipulation and railroading of innocent teens by police, the media hype that overlooked the facts, the outrageous level of crime perpetrated by minorities, overzealous prosecutors who want the feather in their cap despite the teens innocence, etc… etc… A good, insightful documentary.

Korey,Ray Santana (and Ray's father) and the other Five are the stars of this documentary really. Their humanity and suffering is etched in their faces. The story of five innocent boys (14-16) railroaded into confessing to a crime they didn't commit by police and prosecutors that just wanted feathers in their cap must touch the heart of any parent of a teenage boy. That they are ever exonerated comes as a miracle--and has nothing to do with the justice system. Ray's father says it is literally the hand of God, and honestly, this is one of those things that makes you wonder! The best thing about the movie is the men themselves. The trouble is that for Mr. Burns it is all about the racial fault line between black and white. Does he think we don't have any dividing lines up here in NH? Has he noticed the trailer parks hidden behind pine trees? All white people, definitely divided. I lived in NYC in 1990, and there was another headline blaring then about a white mob killing an innocent black man. The prosecutors in that case were also falling all over themselves making political hay. A person reading the headlines in both cases (Bensonhurst and Central Park 5) would have their blood boiling within 3 seconds. Meanwhile, more and more people in NYC spoke Spanish, Hindi, Chinese. We actually all took the subways together and were often courteous to one another, trapped like sardines, while holding our tabloids which screamed headlines that suggested, "stick to your own kind." It was less and less about black and white, but the tabloids never got that, and Mr. Burns doesn't either. He's sort of a reverse tabloid. But Korey and Ray and Antron and Kevin and Yussef are extraordinary people, and I thank Mr. Burns and his daughter Sara for permitting us to know their story. And this is more complicated than anything Mr. Burns has made before, so everyone should see it.

Sarah Burns (Ken Burns' daughter) and her husband, David McMahon along with Ken Burns have managed to create a documentary SO fantastic, SO incredibly moving, SO impassioned, and SO painful to those of us who want to believe in the goodness of man, that I implore you to see it! And once you have, I hope you will learn more about the continued stonewalling by the New York City Justice System to give these 5 fine gentlemen (and I don't use the word "gentlemen" lightly) the justice and apology they so deserve... and follow up with a letter writing campaign. Here's the information you will need: http://wbls.com/A-Call-for-Justice-Central-Park-Jogger-5/14823124 (I have no connection with this website, I'm just someone who was lucky enough to see this documentary at a local theater and wants to do SOMETHING to help!) And to the 5 men: Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise... you are what we should all aspire to... loving, honest, and with a strength of character and strong moral compass that was (and sadly still is) so sadly missing in all those who did you wrong.