(Updating blog...posting from April 20th)
APRIL 20, 2013 Harlem, New York City--On the 24th Anniversary of one of the great justice system failures of our time, supporters of the Central Park Five staged a rally and march in Harlem to demand justice for the men, now in their mid-late thirties. On April 19th, 1989 five black and latino teenage men were wrongly accused and convicted of raping Trisha Meili, a white woman, as she jogged at night in New york city’s famed Central Park. The case dubbed the Central Park Jogger case gripped the nation and exposed the racism that weaved itself in the very fabric of America.
All five men were convicted in 1990 and began serving prison terms ranging from six to eleven years. In 2002, Matias Reyes, a convicted rapist and murderer serving a life sentence for other crimes, confessed to raping Trisha Meili when he was seventeen and that he acted alone, plus DNA evidence confirmed his crime. This led District Attorney Robert Morgenthau’s office to recommend vacating the convictions of the teenagers originally accused and sentenced to prison. In 2003, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana Jr., and Antron McCray, three of the Central Park Five, sued the city for racial discrimination and emotional distress. As of April 2013, the suit is yet to be settled. The city is refusing to settle the suits, citing the "confessions that withstood intense scrutiny, in full and fair pretrial hearings and at two lengthy public trials." Click through the album below to view the images from today’s rally and march.
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| Kevin Richardson, one of the Central Park Five. |
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| Raymond Santana, Central Park Five |
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| Yusuf Salaam, Central Park Five |
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| Three of the Central Park Five: Yusuf Salaam, Kevin Richardson and raymond Santana. |
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| News clipping of the Central Park Five. |
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