Saw this film at the Toronto International Film Fest and was floored. My perception of the case was a certain way after all these years and this film really opened my eyes. It seems like evidence/justice gets discarded when society feels threatened. We've seen this story time and time again. Innocence is abruptly lost and lives are damaged.
shareAgreed.
Find those WMDS yet?
Just saw the trailer it looks very powerful. I grew up in the UK, was 14 when this happened, and even I remember hearing about 'The Wilding' in the British press. I never heard any follow-up, so had always remembered that they found the culprits, end of story. It's a shame the correction to a press sensation is rarely given the same amount of coverage.
http://drnorth.wordpress.com
I haven't seen the movie yet but I’m looking forward to seeing it. I lived in NYC at the time and remember reading the progress of the case in the paper every day.
What folks have to remember is this wasn’t just a failure of the system itself but also the teenagers and their parents. These kids weren’t innocence lost. They were out on a rampage that night looking for trouble and they found it. They were hanging around Manhattan harassing folks and acting like thugs. Even when confronted by the police these teenagers failed to comprehend the severity of the situation and continued to play out the thug role. The term “Wilding” comes from the fact that what in their holding cells this guys decided they would start singing "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc and even when discussing the rape of the jogger would use the term they did the “Wild Thing” on her. These guys dug their own graves. This is no excuse for the police not to follow through with their investigation an attempt to confirm that in fact they had the right individuals in custody but these guys didn’t make a case for themselves.
The parents weren't any better, many of them encourage their kids to take a plea and confess to the crime. What kind of parents who believes their child to be innocent does that? These parents knew they had trouble teens and just as with the police it was very easy for them to jump to the conclusion that their children were in fact guilty of the crime. This was not one of those cases where a kids is held for hours/days without communication with their parents or a lawyer and interrogated for hours.
@Cjin
Nobody's saying these kids were innocent of any troublemaking--I have to read up further on the case, because I remember all the hype about it,too, and yeah, they may have been troublemakers, but that hardly made them straight-up "thugs", as you put it. The reason the parents told them to accept a plea is because,like the average person thinks, accepting a plea means you'll serve less time in lieu of a longer sentence. Unfortunately, that isn't always the case, and the truth is, you might end up serving MORE time than you were originally told. That's what the parents (and the boys) obviously didn't know to begin with.
And since you know about the case, then you remember that the boys were,in fact, held for well over 24 hours at the police station without their parents around,no lawyers,and were basically browbeaten into confessing. I mean, let's get real---if you're kept up for well 24 over hours with people hollering in your ear accusing you of something you know you didn't do,at that point you began to damn near lose consciousness from trying to stay conscious---by that time, you'll say anything just to get away from your accusers,simply because at that point you're not enough in your right mind to think about the larger implications of what you are saying or signing a confession to. Also keep in mind that the youngest one of the accused--Raymond Santana--was only 14 at the time, so naturally he would have been the easiest one to scare the hell out of, and to intimidate into saying whatever the police wanted to hear--he was still just a kid.
That's another reason I can't stand that *beep* loudmouth Donald Trump---I remember he actually took out a huge ad in some paper in New York calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five. They should have sued his arrogant a** just for that, because he's shown himself to be a racist just as well---witness his constant attacks on Obama beyond all comprehension or rationality,and making himself look like the damn media-hungry whore fool that he is--I'm glad people are finally beginning to get sick and tired of listening to his ridiculous a**.
Just yesterday I heard an interview with Raymond Santana on NPR saying that the wrongful imprisonment lawsuit has been going on a decade, and it's no closer to seeing closure because, he said, there are some obstacles by the city being thrown in its way. I remember some older white woman screaming on the Phil Donahue show back then that they were a bunch of animals who needed to be locked up. I thought they were guily as hell just like everybody else until I saw a Prime Time special in 2002 about their release, and there was even an interview with Mathias Reyes, who 'fessed up to the crime himself. I'll definitely be looking out for this film for sure.
Here's an interview with one of the five and their reaction to the film:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/the-central-park-five-talk-to-s-a-about-their-film-civil-suit-their-lives-today-more
@Kgreene,
First, their video confession was done with their parents present. Racism goes both way, apologist would have you believe that these parents were so poor and uneducated that they couldn’t make a conscious decision for their children. Inner city parent does not equal dumb sheep. While some parents may take a plea bargain there are just as many that would fight for what they believe. That ALL the parents of the Five youths did not feel they should fight for their child’s innocence speaks to the lack of confidence those parents had in their kids.
Second they were not interrogated for the entire 24 hours. You are distorting how they were held in central booking for 24 hours. Yes, let’s get real - staying up for 24 hours does not lead to a person losing consciousness the way you state. To further disprove the interrogated for 24 hours straight, witnesses showed these teens had time to sing "Wild Thing" together and joke around while being held. They made themselves into the straight-up thugs by their behavior, the whole “Wild Thing”/”Wilding” term came from them and their bragging.
You should never be on a jury.
The parents weren't there when the crime was committed. Their kids were already interrogated without a lawyer for a period of time. Overall, the kids were interrogated over 24hrs with little or no food and water and NO LAWYER. Keep in mind that if these kids are as terrible as you say, then likely their parents are terrible parents. Is a terrible parent going to make the right choices for their kids? Especially without a lawyer? At least some if not all the kids were from poor families. Poor families tend to be uneducated (and of course can't afford good lawyers).
Furthermore, you GROSSLY underestimated how easy it is to get a false confession or statement out of people. I've seen several reports detailing how easy it is for the police (or military) to get false confessions. It happens VERY OFTEN. Usually the confessor is mentally weak, young or inexperienced. Dateline actually interviewed a detective that explained how to break someone down in just a few hours.
Frontline had a special report on the 'Norfolk Four", a case where four innocent men were sentenced to life in prison for a rape and murder they didn't commit and absolutely no evidence against them and evidence suggesting only criminal (similar to the Central Park 5). They police got each one to confess and name another, who then in turn (wrongfully) confessed and named another person, etc.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-confessions/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_Four
Also, how about you read into the West Memphis 3. Very similar stories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_Three
CJin,
If you read about the time line, they were being held without their parents and interrogated by detectives without an adult. The video confession was with the ADA and detectives, but that was after the detectives practically told them what to say and who to point the finger to in order to "walk out of there." It reminded me of this episode of American Justice, where this little girl was raped and killed in her own home, and the only person the cops could put blame to was her 14 year old brother. You should try to find the interrogation tape online, it's pretty sad how the police managed to convinced this boy he killed his sister, he ended up "confession" to doing it, though he was innocent. Years later, they found the right killer..
So yes, it does happen, you can't think of the mentality of 2014 because this occurred in the 80s in New York City, where it was absolutely corrupt both in the streets and in the court system.
Those boys are not innocent of harassing people in the park, but they were innocent of the accusation they faced with this woman.