Central Park jogger case
The Central Park jogger case refers to the brutal assault of a female jogger in Central Park, New York City, in April 1989. The victim, Trisha Meili, was found severely beaten and remained in a coma for twelve days. On the same night, several young men were arrested in connection to the attack, leading to the conviction of five teenage boys—Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Kharey Wise—despite the absence of forensic evidence linking them to the crime. The case garnered intense media attention, which fueled public outrage and heightened racial tensions in New York City, a period marked by rising crime rates and fears of violence.
In 2002, the actual perpetrator, Matias Reyes, confessed to the crime, and DNA evidence confirmed his involvement, leading to the exoneration of the five wrongfully convicted men. The case has had lasting implications, prompting discussions on justice reform, racial bias, and media influence on public perception. In recent years, the story gained renewed attention through the Netflix miniseries "When They See Us," highlighting the systemic issues within the judicial system. The exonerated men subsequently received significant settlements from the city and state for their wrongful convictions, further emphasizing the disparities in the treatment of defendants in the criminal justice system.
Central Park jogger case
The Event Trial of five Black American teens for the violent rape and beating of a female jogger
Date Attack took place on April 19, 1989
Place New York, New York
The discovery of a brutally beaten and raped woman in New York City’s Central Park led to the arrest of five young Black Americans, who were accused of spending the night “wilding,” leaving a trail of victims. Subsequent media coverage exploited the great racial fears and problems prevalent in America at the time.
At 1:30 a.m., April 19, 1989, two men discovered a severely beaten woman, wearing a bra with her hands tied together by a shirt, in Manhattan’s Central Park. Police revealed that she had been severely beaten, suffering an almost 75 percent blood loss, multiple blows to her head and body, and extreme exposure. Before awakening with persistent amnesia, the twenty-eight-year-old investment banker, whose identity was not released to the public, remained in a coma for twelve days at Metropolitan Hospital. During the same April night, two male joggers reported being attacked by groups of Black American and Hispanic teenage boys roaming the park; other nearby incidents were also reported. At 10:40 p.m., several boys were arrested leaving the park.
Five boys were subsequently charged with rape, assault, and attempted murder: Raymond Santana (fourteen), Kevin Richardson (fourteen), Antron McCray (fifteen), Yusef Salaam (fifteen), and Kharey Wise (sixteen). The police termed the boys’ behavior “wilding,” going out deliberately to cause trouble and spread fear. None of the suspects, each from a middle-class family, had previously been in trouble with the police, and no forensic evidence was found to link them to the crime. However, the media coverage was overwhelming, helping convict them in the eyes of the public. Donald Trump took out full-page newspaper ads insisting on reinstating the death penalty so the boys could be executed for their supposed crimes. Pete Hamill’s incendiary New York Post article predicted that bands of crack-addled Black Americans would start coming downtown from Harlem to kill White people. The five defendants were convicted and imprisoned.
Impact
In 1989, New York City was experiencing a serious rise in crime, increased abuse of crack cocaine, and heightened racial tensions; two thousand homicides, an all-time high, were reported that year. Other so-called wildings had occurred in 1983 and 1985, and in December 1986, three Black American men were beaten by a White crowd in Howard Beach, Queens. Members of various races living in New York were frightened of one another. The Central Park jogger case served as an emblem of the dangers of increasing violence, lawlessness, and tensions in US cities in general and New York City in particular. It helped supporters to reinstate New York’s death penalty and to enact harsher juvenile-offender laws.
Subsequent Events
In 2002, while serving time for a different rape, Matias Reyes confessed that he had committed the Central Park rape. Reyes claimed that he acted alone, and his DNA matched the sole forensic sample taken at the scene in 1989. All five of the men imprisoned for the crime were exonerated in 2002. In 2003, the jogger, Trisha Meili, revealed her identity and spoke publicly about the attack for the first time.
In 2014, the five men originally accused of the attack settled a lawsuit with New York City for approximately $41 million. Having additionally sued the state of New York, they were also awarded $3.9 million in 2016. Conversations regarding the attack came to the forefront of media coverage once more following the release of the dramatized miniseries When They See Us on the streaming platform Netflix in early 2019; in interviews conducted around that time, Trump, who had been elected president in 2016, did not apologize for the judgment he had passed against the men. Due in large part to renewed backlash sparked by the series, the head of the district attorney's office's sex crimes division when the attack occurred was dropped by her publisher, and the lead prosecutor in the case resigned from her position as a lecturer at Columbia Law School.
A sixth exoneration tied to the Central Park rape case was reported in 2022. Steven Lopez's inclusion in the original indictment concerning the rape of Meili and his subsequent status following judicial proceedings were not as highly covered in the media. At the time, he had pleaded guilty, prior to trial, to the lesser charge of robbing a male jogger and was sentenced to serve time in prison as well. Having spent over three years in prison, it was not until 2021 that he sought a reassessment of his conviction, which was overturned the following year. His case was noted as another significant example of persistent issues in America's judicial system, including in situations where a defendant enters a guilty plea.
Bibliography
Bromwich, Jonah E. "Sixth Teenager Charged in Central Park Jogger Case Is Exonerated." The New York Times, 25 July 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/07/25/nyregion/steven-lopez-central-park-jogger-case.html. Accessed 5 Aug. 2022.
"Central Park Five: The True Story behind When They See Us." The New York Times, 12 June 2019, www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-48609693. Accessed 1 July 2019.
Meili, Trisha. I Am the Central Park Jogger. Scribner, 2003.
Schanberg, Sidney. “A Journey Through the Tangled Case of the Central Park Jogger: When Justice Is a Game.” The Village Voice, November 20–26, 2002.
Sullivan, Timothy. Unequal Verdicts: The Central Park Jogger Trials. Simon & Schuster, 1992.
Weiser, Benjamin. "Settlement Is Approved in Central Park Jogger Case, but New York Deflects Blame." The New York Times, 5 Sept. 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/nyregion/41-million-settlement-for-5-convicted-in-jogger-case-is-approved.html. Accessed 1 July 2019.