Yusef Salaam, one of “The Exonerated Five” who were wrongfully convicted in the infamous Central Park jogger case, is now venturing into the realm of politics. Salaam is pitching a run for District 9 City Council in his hometown of Harlem NYC, aiming to bring his unique perspective and firsthand experience to the table. However, […]
It’s weeks until the 2020 Presidential election and the final debate aired on Thursday night.
In comparison to the first debate, Joe Biden was a lot more aggressive and took control of the conversation. When asked “Do you understand why African American parents are fearful for their children?”
Trump boldly responded, “Nobody has done more for the Black community than Donald Trump.” He hilariously excluded Abraham Lincoln and said the Obama administration didn’t contribute to prison reform as much as him. But Joe Biden responded with a powerful response that shook the room. “He commuted 20 people’s sentences. We commuted over 1,000. He was trying to get the Central Park 5 executed and none of them were guilty.”
Biden brings up that Trump pushed for the death penalty for the Central Park 5, a group of Black and Latino teens who were innocent pic.twitter.com/ECx9yKOmHA
Matia Reyes met Korey Wise at the Auburn Correctional Facility while serving a life sentence. He later confessed to beating and raping Trisha Meili who was jogging in Central Park that day and acting alone. A simple DNA test proved his confession and the rest was history.
They went on to fight for their lawsuit money for years but Ava Duvernay’s When They See Us docuseries introduced this New York horror story to a new generation and brought the men justice.
At the time the Exonerated 5’s attorney, Michael W. Warren said, “I think Donald Trump at the very least owes a real apology to this community and to the young men and their families.”
Check out Two Bees TV’s interview with Korey Wise below as he discusses his clothing line, upcoming book, and staying off of social media.
Korey Wise of the Central Park 5 talks about being an activist and his love for uptowns with @miss2bees at Hulu's Crime + Punishment red carpet screening.
Trump is a pathological liar.#Resist Scranton Moderator Central Park 5 The IRS Bernie Malarkey Russia Lowest IQ Obamacare The Talk Coyotes China Republican Congress Poor Boys Chris Wallace Did Trump Did Biden pic.twitter.com/9GbxuZrD8h
Trump says he’s done more for African Americans than any President in history with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. In reality, Trump falsely accused the Central Park 5 of rape and paid the New York Times and New York Post to publicly call for their brutal executions.
The saga of the so-called Central Park Five was brilliantly depicted in Ava DuVernay’s limited series When They See Us on Netflix, but a prosecutor that lead the office which worked on the explosive case is filing a lawsuit against the streamer. Linda Fairstein stated in court documents that the limited series painted her as a villainous figure.
In a report from Page Six, the outlet has learned that Fairstein, 72, filed the lawsuit on Wednesday (March 18). From the court documents, Fairstein believes she was singled out in the series and called the portrayal “false and defamatory.”
“The film series was deliberately calculated to create one, clear and unmistakable villain to be targeted for hatred and vilification for what happened to The Five,” reads part of the wording from the court filing.
When They See Us shared the horrific ordeal suffered by Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise in the wake of the 1989 rape trial of Central Park jogger, Trisha Meili. The teenagers were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned and had their convictions overturned in 2002 but not before suffering greatly both physically and emotionally.
At the time, Fairstein oversaw the Manhattan’s District Attorney’s Sex Crimes division. Fairstein was played by Felicity Huffman, who is currently enduring some real-life legal issues. The actual lead prosecutor was Elizabeth Lederer, who Fairstein did supervise.
In the series, Fairstein is shown as interrogating the teens and referring to them as thugs and in her filing suggested that DuVernay intended to paint her as the orchestrator of the Central Park Five’s legal tribulations.
It’s not what you walk away from but what you walk away with. After being through one of the biggest injustices in American history one of the Central Park Five is glowing up.
As spotted on Page Six Raymond Santana has popped the question to his girlfriend Deelishis; and she said yes. On Thursday, December 5 he posted a video of himself taking a knee as he asked the Flavor Of Love reality star for her hand in marriage. His caption made it clear he claimed his queen. “Yea its official..ya can really hate me now!! @iamsodeelishis is officially off the market… shes all mines…#GODgavemethegoahead..” he wrote.
It has been a very long road to Santana and the rest of the Central Park Five. In 1989 he and his friends were wrongfully convicted of raping a female jogger. In 2014 they were awarded a settlement from the city. Ava DuVernay detailed their story on the moving When They See Us. You can see the trailer below.
It is not as if the City of New York has not compensated (as if there is a dollar amount that can make up for what they did) the young men for the trifling miscarriage of justice perpetrated against them.
And yet the President of The United States continues to stand firm on his call to kill five innocent teenagers, unlawfully detained, bamboozled in the 1989 Central Park Rape case and wrongfully convicted. 30 years later, the POTUS says that they “admitted their guilt.” Not budging in the least, even after they were exonerated in 2002, after another man confessed and DNA matched. The boys served 5 – 13 years.
On Tuesday, Trump was asked by a reporter if he would apologize for calling for the death penalty for the five young men, after they have been exonerated and he said:
“Why do you bring this up now? That is an interesting time to bring it up. You have people on both sides of that. They admitted to their guilt. If you look at Linda Fairstein and you look at some of the prosecutors, they think that The City should have never settled that case. So we will leave it at that.”
Whether he is racist, just mean-spirited or just plain stubborn, the former real estate tycoon will not budge on his initial position. Immediately following the arrest of the five young Black and Brown teenagers, he took out several newspaper ads calling for the return of the death penalty in the state. Yusef Salaam, one of the young boys has told the press what he think about Trump and his team at the time, “They put a bounty on our heads by taking out these full-page ads calling for our deaths.”
The crime on all sides was horrific and changed all parties lives making six victims total.
The Central Park Five included Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam and Korey Wise, who were all aged between 14 and 16 when they were arrested for the brutal rape of a 28-year-old white investment banker. The banker is not the sole victim, as are the young men. In a horrible twist of occurrences their lives are intertwined indefinitely. And having the flames fanned by Trump did not help.
Around the time of the case, Trump paid over $85K to four newspapers in New York taking out ads calling for their execution.
“BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE.”
Attached the ads was an article where the president called the boys murderers:
“I want to hate these murderers and I always will. I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I am looking to punish them.”
The hip-hop community is speaking up. Following the release of Netflix’s woke af When They See Us film – based on the Central Park 5 – various rappers have delivered big messages.
Central Park 5 prosecutor Linda Fairsteincaught massive heat this week following When They See Us premiering over playing a central role in having innocent kids put behind bars.
Linda Fairstein, a key figure in the wrongful prosecution of the Central Park 5, is facing a new backlash — the nonprofit organization she worked on for nearly 20 years wants her canceled … TMZ has learned. Ever since Ava DuVernay‘s Netflix series, “When They See Us,” debuted over the weekend, Fairstein has been feeling the heat. She was head of the Manhattan D.A.’s Sex Crimes Unit in 1989 when the 5 boys were convicted … and her role in coercing confessions is sparking renewed outrage. (TMZ)
A few hours ago, Fairstein resigned from her job at a non-profit organization following the flick’s aftermath.
In a letter to the chairman of the Safe Horizon victims-services agency, Fairstein said she wanted to spare it further grief through association with her. “I do not want to become a lightning rod to inflict damage on this organization, because of those now attacking my record of fighting for social justice for more than 45 years,” Fairstein wrote. Fairstein blasted the public outrage sparked by Friday’s premiere of the four-part “When They See Us,” about the convictions and subsequent exonerations of five teens in the 1989 rape and assault of Trisha Meili while she was jogging in Central Park. (NY Post)
In the film, Linda is portrayed as the key person responsible for having innocent teens wrongfully convicted.
The Ava Duvernay-created series tells the story of the so-called “Central Park Five,” the five black teen boys who were wrongfully incarcerated for the rape and assault of the Central Park Jogger. Linda is played by Felicity Huffmanin the series and, as the woman who supervised the interrogation and trial of the five boys, she’s portrayed in a less-than-glamorous light. (GH)
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