Amongst all the uproar this week resulting from things Donald Trump has said and done, I’m not sure that everyone noticed that the Republican candidate for president also decided that he needed to bring the Central Park Five case back into public debate.
As most know, this famous, indeed notorious case stemmed from a horrendous, brutal attach and rape of a jogger in New York’s Central Park on April 19, 1989. Five young teenagers, four African-American, one Latino, were convicted in two separate trials in 1990. Yusef Sallam, (15); Antron McCray, (15); Ramon Santana, (14); Kevin Richardson, (14); and Korey Wise, (16) served between six and thirteen years in prison.
The five were released from prison after another man, serving a life sentence in prison for other crimes, confessed to the crime in 2002, and his confession was backed-up with DNA evidence.
Better writers and more intelligent people that I have written about Mr. Trumps statement:
Benjy Sarlin, NBCNews.com: www.nbcnews.com/...
Janell Ross, WashingtonPost.com: www.washingtonpost.com/…
Aaron Rupar, ThinkProgress.org: thinkprogress.org/…
There is very much information available on the trial, but the wikipedia article is at: en.wikipedia.org/…
As is often true with statements Mr. Trump makes, it’s unclear why he’s mentioning this now, but I’d like to suggest that never, in the history of American politics has one person done so much to re-open old wounds to so many people in our country.
Chris Hayes, at MSNBC interviewed Yusef Sallam Friday:
I’m republishing this diary to keep the issue from being forgotten.
As Super390 commented, this story is very revealing of how Trump would govern:
Trump is officially saying that coerced false confessions are impossible.
Trump also supports torture of terrorist suspects.
Best way to coerce false confessions? Torture.
Trump Crime Plan: Stop & frisk, round up all Black and Latino men, torture them for confessions, throw them in prison, remove them from the electorate.
Isn’t that, after all, what his supporters really want?