re: Central Park 5/When they See Us

Unfortunately, these statements are from a piece by Ann Coulter, but I am editing so that all we see are her assertions of fact and specific arguments. Unless she just manufactured all of this, it is hard to see the Central Park 5 as "innocent." It may be that Coulter is wrong on some of the facts or that there other explanations but a lot of these points get glossed over in media accounts:

Of the 37 youths brought in for questioning about the multiple violent attacks in the park that night, only 10 were charged with a crime and only five for the rape of the jogger: Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson and Korey Wise. All five confessed -- four on videotape with adult relatives present and one with a parent present, but not on videotape.

Two unanimous, multicultural juries convicted them, despite aggressive defense lawyers putting on their best case.

It was always known that other rapists "got away," as the prosecutor told the jury, and that none of the defendants' DNA was found in the jogger's cervix or on her sock -- the only samples that were taken.

On the drive to the precinct, Raymond Santana blurted out, "I had nothing to do with the rape. All I did was feel the woman's t*ts." The cops didn't even know about a rape yet.

Yusef Salaam announced to the detective interviewing him, "I was there, but I didn't rape her."

Two of Korey Wise's friends said that when they ran into him on the street the day after the attack, he told them the cops were after him. "You heard about that woman that was beat up and raped in the park last night? That was us!"

Taken to the scene of the crime by a detective and a prosecutor, he said, "Damn, damn, that's a lot of blood. ... I knew she was bleeding, but I didn't know how bad she was. It was dark. I couldn't see how much blood there was at night."

Wise also told a detective that someone he thought was named "Rudy" stole the jogger's Walkman and belt pouch. The jogger was still in a coma. The police did not know yet that a Walkman had been stolen from her.

Wise told a friend's sister, Melody Jackson, that he didn't rape the jogger; he "only held her legs down while Kevin (Richardson) f---ed her." Jackson volunteered this information to the police, thinking it would help Wise.

The night of the attack, Richardson told an acquaintance, "We just raped somebody." The crotch of his underwear was suspiciously stained with semen, grass stains, dirt and debris. Walking near the crime scene with a detective the next day, Richardson said, "This is where we got her ... where the raping occurred."

Santana and Richardson independently brought investigators to the precise location of the attack on the jogger.

Recall that, when all these statements were made, no one -- not the police, the witnesses, the suspects, or their friends and acquaintances -- knew whether Meili would emerge from her coma and be able to identify her attackers.

Far from trembling and afraid, as Burns imagines, the suspects were singing the rap song "Wild Thing" for hours in the precinct house, laughing and joking about raping the jogger. One of the attackers said, "It was fun."

When a cop told Santana that he should have been out with a girlfriend rather than mugging people in Central Park, Santana responded, "I already got mines," and laughed with another boy from the park.

One of the youths arrested that night stated on videotape that he heard Santana and another boy laughing about "how they 'made a woman bleed.'"

This allegation was based on Matias Reyes' confession to the attack -- and his claim that he acted alone. His DNA matched the unidentified DNA on the jogger -- proving nothing, other than that he was the one of the others who "got away." He is also the "Rudy" who stole her Walkman, as Wise said at the time. How did Wise know Reyes -- or "Rudy" -- had taken a Walkman?

A cellmate claims Reyes told him that he heard a woman screaming in the park that night and ran to join the fun.

The "exoneration" comes down to Reyes' unsubstantiated claim that he acted alone. Years of careful investigation, videotaped confessions, witness statements, assembling evidence, trial by jury and repeated appeals -- all that is nothing compared to the word of an upstanding citizen like Reyes, a violent psychopath who sexually assaulted his own mother and raped and murdered a pregnant woman while her children heard the attack through the bedroom door.

Note that Reyes faced absolutely no penalty for his confession -- the statute of limitations had run out years earlier. Before he confessed, Reyes had been moved to Korey Wise's cellblock. He requested a transfer on the grounds that he feared Wise's gang. All he had to do was confess -- with no penalty -- and he got his prison transfer!

With all of the facts posted in these past two pages of this thread, I suspect we won't see anyone else show up to defend these guys.

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Unfortunately, these statements are from a piece by Ann Coulter, but I am editing so that all we see are her assertions of fact and specific arguments.

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Why should anything Ann Coulter writes in an editorial as fact?

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How so? they were wrongly convicted as a result of an unfair situation. $41 million may not have even been enough.

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Typical. Address nothing, stick to your flawed conclusion.

Wrong.

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Why should anything Ann Coulter writes in an editorial as fact?

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Maybe because her track record for the truth is on par with or better than the New York Times, CNN, ABC, all alphabet news channels, Washington Post, HuffPost, etc.....

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they were wrongly convicted as a result of an unfair situation. $41 million may not have even been enough.

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GOOD Lord!

That's my thinking, 808. If Coulter was off base on her factual assertions, I would think she would have long since been called out on her mistakes/misstatements/lies by now. If that has been done, I have not seen it.

don't believe ms 13 was around then.