I just saw that PBS will be broadcasting the Central Park Five Documentary and are sponsoring a NYT live panel talk with Ken Burns and four of the men. I was lucky enough to see a screening of the documentary at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles shortly before President Obama won reelection. It was such a dichanomy to see a black president of our nation but see a tangible reminder that black men can still be falsely imprisoned. Shortly before the panel I was able to interview (youtube interview) the men whose lives had been stolen by a system where the need for vengeance outweighed the need for justice.
Watching the Ken Burns film brought back my memories of hearing about the crime. I was still living in Iowa (never left the state) and had always been told ‘bad things happen in the big city’. I remember hearing about this since the boys were so young to be accused of such a crime and that none of them seemed ‘dangerous’ or bad instead they just seemed like normal guys. Once I saw the interview and what the police and prosecuting attorneys had done to railroad them into false confessions it made me angry that NONE of these people have ever answered for their crime to steal the freedom of these five guys. Instead they have gone onto great success and positions of power over even more innocents in New York.
I can’t imagine how many other innocents have languished in jail after the police and prosecutors collude to falsify evidence to garner false confessions. Now I’ve recently learned that AGAIN New York has denied them their justice by refusing to settle with them for the years of false imprisonment back in February (NYT article). It’s a shameful black mark against all of us not just New Yorkers but all Americans. Justice for some isn’t justice ….
Justice and The Central Park Five
6:30 PM – 8:00 PMThe TimesCenter
242 West 41st St. NYC
A conversation about the issues raised by “The Central Park Five,” the award-winning documentary about the horrific crime that occurred in Central Park in 1989, the rush to judgment and the lives of those wrongly convicted. Don’t miss the chance to hear from the Emmy Award-winning producer/director/writer Ken Burns, co-director and author Sarah Burns, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Jim Dwyer, who covered the case and is interviewed in the film, and the exonerated, including Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise, live at The TimesCenter the evening following the film’s debut on PBS (find your PBS station broadcasting the documentary film)In collaboration with PBS.
Tickets $35
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