NetFlix's When They See Us (originally Central Park Five)

[Smallcock]

Haven't seen it but I watched a documentary about Central Park Five years ago. Such a sad and disturbing case of innocent teens imprisoned for a crime they didn't do. In a larger context, it was perhaps one of two highly publicized crimes that changed the course of NYC, for the better. The other being the 1984 New York City Subway shooting in which Bernhard Goetz became the people's hero for shooting four teens that tried to rob him.

In the 70s and 80s NYC had become a cesspool of violent crime. Robberies, rapes, assaults, and murders were synonymous with life in city. People were afraid to take the subway or walk their dog in Central Park in the evening and night. The public demanded change, more and better policing. Police were under pressure to bring the perp in the Central Park rape case to justice - they chose to have several innocent teen boys take the fall. Crime peaked in 1990, one year after the Central Park Five rape, and started to decline. In 1994, the new Mayor of NYC, Rudy Giuliani made increased law enforcement a central part of his governance. Millennials visiting Central Park today may be unaware of what that place used to be like.

I could be wrong but I don't think any law enforcement personnel involved in the Central Park Five Jogger Case have ever been held accountable for what they did.

 

[shack]

And trump was calling for the death penalty for them.

 

[TeeJay]

And trump was calling for the death penalty for them.

Oh yeah this docu is very much "poor black kids" and they used tons of Donald Trump scenes and quotes knowing it will hit the emotional cue with their intended audiences

They make most of the prosecutors and police look like fools in this film just because they can

Lots of facts were changed / altered to make the young blacks look like church kids who were totally innocent


You know never mind the fact 2 of the 5 kids snitched on their friend BEFORE the jogger was ever found (in the film we are shown the kids getting woken up the next morning to get interrogated, not blurting out while in the park)
Or that Wise's own sister took the stand during the trial and testified AGAINST him (her character is just erased from the movie since it is inconvenient to the story the director wants to tell)
But 4 of the 5 had real evidence against them (including hairs that were recovered)

They also seem to have just erased the fact that Wise was a known card carrying gang member who routinely preyed on others; instead he is shown as a poor sweet innocent boy

 

[jcpro]

In the pipeline of the documentaries: Tawana Brawley and Al Sharpton- How to destroy the innocent with the fake rape accusations. Or Crown Heights Riots: How to use a traffic accident to kick some Jewish ass.

 

[Smallcock]

And trump was calling for the death penalty for them.

Of course, the assumption was that the police did their job and that they were actually guilty.

Live as Joe Citizen in NYC in the 80s, and your perspective would be completely different.

 

[shack]

Live as Joe Citizen in NYC in the 80s, and your perspective would be completely different.

I didn't present a perspective. I stated a fact.

 

[Mable]

Might want to read this for some facts regarding the case: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273968/central-park-5-were-murderous-thugs-john-perazzo

Full disclosure: I knew the lady who was assaulted. She worked at a firm (financial) called Solomon Brothers, at the time.

 

[black booty lover]

Yeah I watched this, and from the get go some things didn't make sense to me. Like a whole group of kids go to Central Park to cause shit, but these particular 5 kids just went along to have a nice stroll in the park??? Seems a little off to me. In that article, a black cop talks about how it doesn't make sense that they would rail road the kids because the jogger might come out of the coma and testify it wasn't them, but I will say, they didn't think was going to survive.

IDK, I mean I've watched interviews with these guys, and they seem pretty genuine about their stories or lack of involvement in the rape, but who knows about the other shit going on in the park. Hard to say.

 

[frankcastle]

Oh yeah this docu is very much "poor black kids" and they used tons of Donald Trump scenes and quotes knowing it will hit the emotional cue with their intended audiences

They make most of the prosecutors and police look like fools in this film just because they can

Lots of facts were changed / altered to make the young blacks look like church kids who were totally innocent


You know never mind the fact 2 of the 5 kids snitched on their friend BEFORE the jogger was ever found (in the film we are shown the kids getting woken up the next morning to get interrogated, not blurting out while in the park)
Or that Wise's own sister took the stand during the trial and testified AGAINST him (her character is just erased from the movie since it is inconvenient to the story the director wants to tell)
But 4 of the 5 had real evidence against them (including hairs that were recovered)

They also seem to have just erased the fact that Wise was a known card carrying gang member who routinely preyed on others; instead he is shown as a poor sweet innocent boy

The issue here is not whether or not these were good or bad guys.

The issue is that they were sentenced for a crime they did not commit.


IF the evidence was damning then they'd still be behind bars. It's nice to be sideline lawyers and piece together biased evidence to argue either side but at the end it was decided in court which has far better access than we do.

 

[oldjones]

Oh yeah this docu is very much "poor black kids" and they used tons of Donald Trump scenes and quotes knowing it will hit the emotional cue with their intended audiences…

Considering DJT was just another thirtysomething Manhattanite at the time, with no known expertise on crime or law-enforcement, it's remarkable how often he managed to get himself in front of cameras to hit emotional cues with his intended audiences, and make the innocent — as we now know — kids appear to be the devil's spawn.

 

[TeeJay]

The issue here is not whether or not these were good or bad guys.

The issue is that they were sentenced for a crime they did not commit.


IF the evidence was damning then they'd still be behind bars. It's nice to be sideline lawyers and piece together biased evidence to argue either side but at the end it was decided in court which has far better access than we do.

The general consensus is some of the kids (I forget which would need to go re-read but the hispanic guy and the oldest guy for sure) assaulted the jogger and left her
THEN the rapist came along (crime of opportunity)

Most sources think the boys had nothing to do with the rape, but they certainly did assault multiple victims in the park

(and the rapist was a really evil dude, his MO was to cut the eyes out of his victims so they would not be able to ID him after the fact; he claims he only did not do so to the jogger because she was out and presumed dead)

The kids in the film are guilty as sin (I mentioned above a few were gang members as well, not exactly sweet innocent kids)

 

[David Beckham 23]

The general consensus is some of the kids (I forget which would need to go re-read but the hispanic guy and the oldest guy for sure) assaulted the jogger and left her
THEN the rapist came along (crime of opportunity)

Most sources think the boys had nothing to do with the rape, but they certainly did assault multiple victims in the park

(and the rapist was a really evil dude, his MO was to cut the eyes out of his victims so they would not be able to ID him after the fact; he claims he only did not do so to the jogger because she was out and presumed dead)

The kids in the film are guilty as sin (I mentioned above a few were gang members as well, not exactly sweet innocent kids)

What are you talking about? You're trying to connect some dots but keep missing the point that the boys spent a significant time in jail for a crime they didn't commit. While guys like Brock Tuner gets a slap on the wrists for rapping an unconscious girl

 

[Darts]

25 years before the Central Park Jogger, there was the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese

"Son of Sam" terrorized NYC until he was caught.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Berkowitz

 

[Imafia]

Might want to read this for some facts regarding the case: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273968/central-park-5-were-murderous-thugs-john-perazzo

Full disclosure: I knew the lady who was assaulted. She worked at a firm (financial) called Solomon Brothers, at the time.

After watching the show, this is an interesting read. Thank you

 

[black booty lover]

After watching the show, this is an interesting read. Thank you

It's very hard to believe who's telling the truth. I find it odd that these particular 5 kids just happened to be angels that went along with a group of 30 kids who went out to terrorize the park that night.

I also find it hard to believe 4 kids (ages 14-15) and one 16 year old would rape a women. I can see kids that age causing shit, beating people up (especially growing up in Harlem in the 80's) but raping a women is a different ball of wax. Then by chance, a serial rapist just happens to stumble across her, already raped and beaten, and simply took advantage by raping her again and beating her even worse. Also, when you watch the video tapes of the confessions, you can see the look of confusion on their faces. They can't even get the facts straight. When they show Korey Wise the picture of the victim in the hospital beaten, the look on his face says it all. It's almost like "I admitting I did this???" Korey Wise wasn't even on the list of kids they wanted to talk to. They saw him outside his housing complex when they were rounding up the other kids and said "why don't you come down to the precinct too" and suddenly he's a suspect.

The fact that there was list at all tells me that other kids were rating out other kids. I think what happened was, some of the kids saw a smaller group of kids beating up a jogger, didn't know if was male, female, etc...and when questioned about beating a "jogger" they assumed it was one of the victims they beat up that night as there were a few joggers. Now you have the cops saying she was rapped and almost beaten to death, and kids start blaming each other not realizing how bad the situation was and also not realizing it's not even one of the victims they assaulted that night. It's pretty easy to understand why they would be confused. You go out with a bunch of your friends that night to Central Park beating up random people, and find out one is almost dead, in the hospital was brutally raped. Suddenly your thinking "well, yeah we beat up all these people last night so it must have been us". Now they've convinced themselves it was them, but don't know how the fuck to get themselves out of this trouble, so they start to fabricate what happened, all blaming each other, implicating each other, and minimizing their own participation. To me that's the most logical explanation.

 

[Mable]

It's very hard to believe who's telling the truth. I find it odd that these particular 5 kids just happened to be angels that went along with a group of 30 kids who went out to terrorize the park that night.

I also find it hard to believe 4 kids (ages 14-15) and one 16 year old would rape a women. I can see kids that age causing shit, beating people up (especially growing up in Harlem in the 80's) but raping a women is a different ball of wax.

It sounds like you have not been involved in the area of what used to be referred to as juvenile delinquency. I found age to be essentially irrelevant. I knew many who were 15 going on 50. Far more sophisticated than many "adults" I knew.

 

[basketcase]

Oh yeah this docu is very much "poor black kids" and they used tons of Donald Trump scenes and quotes knowing it will hit the emotional cue with their intended audiences

They make most of the prosecutors and police look like fools in this film just because they can

Lots of facts were changed / altered to make the young blacks look like church kids who were totally innocent


You know never mind the fact 2 of the 5 kids snitched on their friend BEFORE the jogger was ever found (in the film we are shown the kids getting woken up the next morning to get interrogated, not blurting out while in the park)
Or that Wise's own sister took the stand during the trial and testified AGAINST him (her character is just erased from the movie since it is inconvenient to the story the director wants to tell)
But 4 of the 5 had real evidence against them (including hairs that were recovered)

They also seem to have just erased the fact that Wise was a known card carrying gang member who routinely preyed on others; instead he is shown as a poor sweet innocent boy

Why am I not at all surprised by the above posted opinion?

I have no doubt that those guy's weren't in the park for a church picnic but the actual evidence for them being involved in the rape seems weak. The immense political pressure for arrests plus latent racism makes the ideal conditions for false confessions and the like, even if the cops involved thought they were being above board.

Another side story (that likely pops up in the doc) is how crazy the city went about a white women being raped while black victims of rape at that time had trouble getting the authorities to act.

 

[Smallcock]

I don't recall all the facts but from what I gather, these kids weren't saints. They were up to no good just like so many other hoodlums terrorizing the people of NYC. But they were not guilty of the beat down and rape.

Elizabeth Lederer, one of the lead prosecutors in the case, just resigned from her role as a professor at Columbia Law School: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/po...0190612-a6rqou3hdvhyljpzkzafqtncca-story.html

 

[Darts]

a white women being raped while black victims of rape at that time had trouble getting the authorities to act.

Let's not forget the Duke lacrosse case. The black accuser played three cards, she was black (racism), she was a woman (sexism) and she claimed she was raped. The three white guys didn't have a snowball's chance in hell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case

 

[black booty lover]

It sounds like you have not been involved in the area of what used to be referred to as juvenile delinquency. I found age to be essentially irrelevant. I knew many who were 15 going on 50. Far more sophisticated than many "adults" I knew.

I just don't think rape is a crime that 14 year olds set out to do. Murder, and everything else yes. Rape just seems to me like a crime that comes when people are more sexually mature, but who the fuck knows......