1989 was an interesting time for New York City. Wall Street was booming while the poverty rate in the five boroughs hovered around 25%. Crack and AIDS were labeled epidemics as there seemed to be no hope for dissipating the effects of either. Inequality was rampant and the fear of lawlessness lay just under the surface of the political scene.
”Wilding” was a term introduced by the media, attributed to the youth culture of the city, to describe the phenomenon of “roving gangs of teenagers” destroying property and attacking defenseless citizens.
In 1989 five teenage boys, four black one hispanic, were wrongfully accused of raping a white female jogger in Central Park. Wilding was blamed for the attack. The accused were part of a larger group of people arrested in Central Park on charges of throwing rocks, destruction of property and random attacks and muggings.
All five defendants were later exonerated.
trump weighs in
Before his quest to “Make America Great Again” Donald Trump was calling for “law and order” in New York City. He bought full page ads in four of the city’s papers for a reported $85,000 calling for the death penalty, not a possibility under New York law, for the five defendants. These ads appeared 2 weeks after the attack, long before jury selection much less a trial had begun.
“How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits? Criminals must be told that their CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS!”
from The Guardian
“The miscarriage of justice is widely remembered as a definitive moment in New York’s fractured race relations.
...
Now those involved in the case of the so-called Central Park Five and its aftermath say Trump’s rhetoric served as an unlikely precursor to a unique brand of divisive populism that has powered his rise to political prominence in 2016.”
25 years later, a $40 settlement
As stated earlier, the five defendants were exonerated when DNA evidence pointed to another man, who subsequently pleaded guilty to the crime and admitted to acting alone.
New York City is on the verge of settling a wrongful conviction lawsuit, paying each of the men $1 million for each year they were wrongly imprisoned. The case has taken a long time winding it’s way to this conclusion, supported by Mayor Bill DiBlasio.
trump weighs in again
This time in 2014, when Bill DiBlasio campaigned on finalizing the settlement, Trump took to the New York Daily News. His letter was printed alongside the original full page ad (I assume for free this time).
“My opinion on the settlement of the Central Park Jogger case is that it’s a disgrace. A detective close to the case, and who has followed it since 1989, calls it “the heist of the century.”
the point of all this
Donald Trump doesn’t care about facts. This is not the last time any of us will say this. But this story points to a long history of hair trigger instincts to demonize the “other”.
We cannot allow this man to win the White House. He will make Dubya look downright conciliatory by comparison.