Shirene Tabarestani
1895-0581
The Central Park Five Documentary
In one of the most well known cities of the United States, New York City was the central focus in the 1980’s. Five minority youths aged 14 to 16 were arrested and convicted of rape, sexual assault, and almost murdering 28-year old white female investment banker, Trisha Meili, as she was jogging through Central Park on the night of April 19th, 1989. These innocent Latino and African American five young men— Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, and Yusef Salaam—were exonerated in 2002 after serving 6-13 years in prison until the condemned murderer, Matias Reyes confessed to the rape of Trisha Meili, where his DNA was discovered to match the evidence
I think Crime Control Model it was indeed. This whole case was to discover the truth or to establish the factual guilt of the five young boys.
Careers in the police department and the prosecutor’s office were made at the expense of the victimized teenagers. The young men were tried and convicted despite a lack of evidence, including the DNA evidence. Their primary evidence was the video confessions that were given, which turned out to be false statements because they were under the impression that they were going to go home afterwards and the hair that was found on the victim that “possibly” connected them to the crime. The police gave the boys false promises, which is against the rule of Due Process. Fundamental fairness was not given. During the police interrogations, threats, promises, misconduct, “spitting”, abusive behavior, not providing food or water during custody and interrogation, etc., was involved in order to induce the individuals to testify against themselves in the situation. Looking back to the Watt v. Indiana case, the police interrogated Watts for five consecutive evenings and deprived him of sleep and food. It is very similar in this case, where the boys were under such stressful conditions that they were willing to “just say that [they] did it so that [they] can go home.” Under the factor of “offensive