New York City's Five Teenagers: The Central Park Five

The Central Park Five is the story of five teenagers, 14 to 16, four of whom were African American and the other of Hispanic origin, were wrongly accused and convicted of the sexual assault of a white woman in New York City’s Central Park. Prior to the assault, these teenagers were detained by fellow police officers in connection with the numerous amount of attacks in Central Park committed by a group of roughly around 25 teenagers. Although they were not engaging in the criminal activities of the group, they were still brought into the Central Park Precinct. On the same night of questioning, a woman was reported to have been assaulted and raped. After hours of aggressive interrogation, all five of them confessed to the attacks in the park

and incriminated one or more of the others for the rape. All five of the teenaged boys indicated that they did not rape the jogger, but they confessed to being an accessory to the crime. Further into the investigation, a sample of DNA collected from the rape kit did not match any of the suspects. Therefore, since no DNA evidence could tie the five suspects to the crime, the prosecution’s case rested heavily on the confessions made by each one of the teenagers. They were charged with assault, robbery, sexual abuse, and attempted murder in relation to the rape and the other attacks in the park. As a result, they received sentences between 5 to 15 years. However, a man serving life in prison for murder and several accounts of rape, confronted and confessed to a judge he was the one to rape the jogger. The DNA evidence that did not match any of the suspects was a positive match for Reyes, which corroborated his story. The five men who became known as the Central Park Five, convictions were overturned, but they had already served 7 to 13 years in prison for the assault. After their release, they sued the New York City’s Police Department and won the settlement. To summarize, in the Central Park Five documentary, Ken Burns illustrates the city of New York in the 1980s plagued by the epidemic of crack cocaine, crime, AIDS, and racial tensions, as well as the story of five teenager’s falsely accused of rape. He retraces their past, and through those experiences, recreates their story.