Late this afternoon, a rally took place to honour and support the "Central Park Five," a group of young, innocent men, who were wrongly convicted of a crime that they did not commit.
"Media coverage at the time portrayed the teens as guilty, and used racially coded terms like wolf pack to refer to the group of boys accused in the attack. Donald Trump took out full-page ads in four city newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty so they could be executed. However, the convictions of the five were vacated in 2002 when the real rapist came forward and confessed to the crime, after the five defendants had already served sentences of almost seven to 13 years. New York City is refusing to settle a decade-long civil lawsuit brought by the men," reported Democracy Now!
Today's rally took place in Foley Square, near the federal courthouse. Amongst the supporters for this rally were members of Occu Evolve.
Five innocent Black and Latino teenagers were wrongly arrested, tried, and convicted in a sensational case known as the "Central Park Jogger."
Among the issues compounding the injustice that befell the Central Park 5 are that the Bloomberg administration refuses to settle the civil lawsuits brought by the innocent men whilst at the same time demands documentary footage that would violate the First Amendment rights of the documentary filmmakers behind the film, "The Central Park Five."
