Central Park Five
Wrongly accused group
The Central Park Five were five Black and Latino teenagers—Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise—wrongfully convicted in 1989 for the assault and rape of a white jogger in New York's Central Park.
Their convictions, obtained through coerced confessions, were vacated in 2002 after another man confessed and DNA evidence confirmed his guilt.
The case became a landmark example of racial bias in the American criminal justice system.
The five, now often called the Exonerated Five, received a settlement from New York City in 2014.
- wrongful convictionErroneous guilty verdict
- 1989Final Cold War year
- media frenzyIntense journalistic attention surge
- trial by mediaPublic condemnation through coverage
- joggerRecreational runner
injustice · coerced confession · false confession · innocence · DNA evidence · Ava DuVernay · racism · NYPD · racial profiling · false accusation · teenagers · Harlem · New York City · prosecution · prison · lost years · exoneration · civil rights
- New York CityManhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island
- Famous TrialsScopes Trial, Nuremberg Trials, Tokyo Trials, Ted Bundy