'I Felt I Had to Make It': Ava DuVernay on Why the Central Park Five Story Still Matters
The morning after Ava DuVernays four-part Netflix miniseries about the Central Park Five, When They See Us, premiered at Harlems legendary Apollo Theater, she was in a daze. I dont drink and I dont do any other kinds of substances, she told Rolling Stone, but I think I have a hangover. She had the headache, but also the hazy memory of the community shed felt the previous night, screening her labor of love in the neighborhood that raised the five teenagers wrongfully convicted of brutally raping jogger Trisha Meili on April 19, 1989. It was a whirlwind of fellowship that involved a lot of smiles, hugs, and a lot of tears.
Convicted despite zero DNA evidence or eyewitness accounts connecting them to the crime, and major inconsistencies in their coerced testimonies about the event, the five young men Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Korey Wise and Yusef Salaam were exonerated 13 years later, after a serial rapist confessed and was matched to DNA samples collected at the scene. They settled a civil lawsuit against the city of New York in 2014 for $41 million.
Despite that verdict, the surviving police officers who arrested them, the prosecutors who tried them and the New York real estate mogul who spent $85,000 to place newspaper ads calling for their execution still refuse to acknowledge their innocence. They admitted they were guilty, Donald Trump said in a statement to CNN in October 2016, one month before he was elected President of the United States. The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same.
Santana responded on Twitter, What more do we have to prove? Im tired of proving our innocence! It is that crushing heartbreak that pervades When They See Us.
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/when-they-see-us-netflix-central-park-five-ava-duvernay-interview-841081/