This blog stays updated with cases of Police Brutality against Black Men and the Black Community. These are just the cases that we are fortunate enough to hear about. But, there are several "unsung victims" whose story has never been told or videotaped. Infamous cases such as Rodney King and Oscar Grant are not isolated incidents. They exist amongst a corrupt system of impunity. Who am I? I am a “Concerned Member of the Black Community.”
New York police took less than two weeks in 1989 to arrest five young
African-American men in the shockingly violent assault and rape of
28-year-old investment banker Trisha Meili, in what became known as the
Central Park Jogger case.
All five were eventually convicted.
It took another 13 years before those convictions were overturned. A
prison inmate named Matias Reyes, in jail for unrelated crimes,
confessed to the Meili attack. Subsequent DNA testing proved his guilt.
The jail terms of the five were vacated after Reyes’ confession.
Now, 10 years after that dramatic move, comes “The Central Park
Five.” It’s a gripping documentary by Emmy-winning filmmaker Ken Burns,
along with his daughter Sarah Burns — who also wrote a book on the Meili
case — and David McMahon.
The film made headlines during its festival-circuit run, when New
York City subpoenaed research unearthed by the Burns group about the
case. The filmmaker has so far resisted turning over material gathered
while making the film.
It’s no coincidence, Burns argues, that the city’s efforts will
further prolong the suit against it by three of the so-called Central
Park Five, who charge malicious prosecution, racial discrimination and
racial distress. He says those suits have been stalled in New York
courts since 2003.
“It’s the fourth quarter and they’re trying to run out the clock,”
Burns says. “These young men are now all in their late 30s, and it’s
been more than 20 years.
“What’s so incredible is that these [men] have got the courage to say, ‘We’re not giving up. This is what justice looks like.’ ”
“The Central Park Five” began a limited theatrical release on Nov.
23, and will air next year on HBO. The film examines the night of April
19, 1989, the so-called “wolf pack” attack on Meili in Central Park, and
the subsequent media and city-wide frenzy. All five men later said they
were coerced into making confessions that implicated the others as well
as themselves.
Burns hopes “The Central Park Five” raises public awareness of what
he sees as an ongoing injustice. “In the larger moral sense,” Burns
says, “this is 13 years of tragedy, compounded by a decade of limbo.”
