Members of the “Central Park 5″ — now known as the “Exonerated 5” — addressed the 2024 Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago on Thursday, Aug. 22, in assist of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential run.
Yusef Salaam, Korey Sensible, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson and Antron McCray have been wrongly convicted of rape and assault as youngsters in 1989. Salaam, 50, Wise, 52, Santana, 49, and Richardson, 49, appeared onstage alongside civil rights chief Rev. Al Sharpton throughout the fourth and ultimate evening of the DNC. McCray, 50, was not in attendance.
Throughout their trial, Trump took out full-page advertisements in New York newspapers calling for the loss of life penalty.
“Thirty-five years in the past, my pals and I have been in jail for a criminal offense we didn’t commit. Our youth was stolen from us,” Sensible mentioned on the stage. “Day-after-day as we walked into courtrooms, individuals screamed at us, threatened us, due to Donald Trump.”
“Vice President Harris has additionally labored to make issues fairer. I do know she’s going to do the identical as president,” Sensible added.
“Forty-five wished us unalive. He wished us useless. As we speak, we’re exonerated,” Salaam, who’s now a New York Metropolis Council member, mentioned of former president Donald Trump — who was the forty fifth president and is now Harris’ Republican White Home challenger.
“He has by no means modified, and he by no means will. That man thinks that hate is the animating drive in America. It’s not,” Salaam added.
EVA HAMBACH/AFP by way of Getty
On April 19, 1989, round 1:30 a.m. in New York Metropolis’s Central Park, Patricia “Trisha” Meili was discovered barely alive after being crushed unconscious and sexually assaulted.
The 5 teenagers have been then arrested within the days after. Santana and Richardson have been 14 years outdated, McCray and Salaam have been 15 and Sensible was 16 years outdated after they have been taken into custody for Meili’s assault.
After hours of interrogation on the Central Park Precinct on April 21, the boys, underneath duress, confessed to assaulting her. Nonetheless, they recanted their admissions, stating they solely confessed underneath the premise that they may go house afterward, and this in the end led to one of the most famous miscarriages of justice in trendy American historical past.
From April 27–28, 1989, all 5 teenagers have been indicted on counts together with rape, assault, tried homicide and rioting. Every served 5 to 13 years in jail till convicted assassin Matias Reyes confessed, and DNA proof set them free in 2002.
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For the reason that 5 males have been exonerated, Trump has refused to apologize to the group for calling for his or her executions. Throughout his first presidential run in October 2016, Trump bolstered his earlier place.
Even whereas president, in June 2019, he was requested concerning the exonerated males and he repeated his stance that “They admitted their guilt.”
