Voices From the Archive

Four of the “Central Park Five” (who were exonerated in 2002) were initially sent to the Spofford Juvenile Detention Center, where they participated in a writing workshop run by Youth Communication. Raymond Santana published his poem, Time, in our prison newsletter, Spofford Voices, protesting his incarceration and proclaiming his innocence.

Around the same time, Youth Communication published Strange Brew, a newspaper at Urban Academy HS. Urban Academy student Tracy Rainford closely followed the media reports about the case from many sources and asked critical questions about holes in the investigation that the mainstream media missed. That story is excerpted below.

In Strange Brew, a newspaper at Urban Academy HS, Tracy Rainford, still a teenager herself, asked critical questions about the mainstream media coverage. She came to the conclusion that the evidence was too contradictory, and that the confessions could have been coerced. She turned out to be right. 

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THEY WERE RAILROADED!

BY TRACY RAINFORD 

Originally published January 6, 1991


I wasn’t interested in the Central Park jogger case until last summer. The media led me to believe they were guilty, so I didn’t think much about it. To me, they were just a bunch of stupid guys. 

I was in summer school, the S.T.E.P. Program at Columbia University, when in English class my teacher handed out articles about the case from the Amsterdam News and the City Sun, two papers that primarily serve the black community. I listened to WLIB radio, which my father’s car was tuned to all summer long, and I heard talk about the fishy things going on during the trial. 

My opinion changed. I believe the Central Park defendants were unjustly accused and convicted, and the media is partly to blame. 

For example, the names of minors accused of crimes aren’t usually published, especially without permission. Yet the names of the Central Park suspects were all over the TV and newspapers! 

Where Was the Publicity? 

Where was the media when the black Brooklyn woman was raped around the time of the rape of Trisha Meili (the Central Park jogger)? I bet hardly anyone heard about it. Why? Was it because there wasn’t anything that could bring up controversy? Was it because it was a black-on-black crime? It was a rape also. A woman’s rights were also invaded.

The media judged the Central Park suspects guilty before there was any evidence against them. They were shown being dragged out of the police station covering their faces, unlike those white “frat” boys arrested recently for date rape, who were shown walking out of the station with their faces uncovered. 

The Central Park suspects were called a “wolf pack” by the white media, suggesting that groups of black teens are animals. “Wilding” was another word the media used, as if the teens run wild like uncontrollable animals. 

Yet in the Howard Beach and Bensonhurst racial attacks, those groups of white boys, who to me acted worse, weren’t called “Beasties” or “Wild animals,” even though they chased, beat, or shot innocent people just because of race. 

l don’t believe the suspects’ “confessions” were real. They were too vague and they were given when the police didn’t know all the facts about what happened, like whether or not the victim’s bra was torn off. It’s well known that the police have a way of intimidating people into making false confessions. I say if the police didn’t know a lot of the facts during the questioning, they must have interrogated, intimidated, maybe even fabricated the “confessions” from the suspects. 

Here’s an example I made up: The police might say, “Your friend told me you were the one who raped her and it was all your idea. If you confess, we could get you off easy.” And Yusef Salaam’s confession was taken without parental permission, even though he was only 15 at the time. 

No Physical Evidence 

There was little or no physical evidence linking the suspects with the crime: none of the sperm found on the jogger matched the suspects, and there was no mud or blood on the suspects’ clothing, even though the jogger was found in a muddy area bleeding to death (in the time between the rape and the arrest of the suspects, there was no time for suspects to change their clothes). 

I think these kids were suspects because they were black kids in a group. The police suspect you of things when you’re in a group. When I’m with my friends, the police seem to watch us more than if it was just me and another person. Especially when my friends are all black. 

I believe the reason why the boys showed “no remorse” (as the white media claimed) is because they didn’t do anything. This is most definitely a “media lynching” case. It shows that we have a long way to go before we can achieve true justice in this society. 

Editor’s note: In 2002, Matias Reyes, who was already in prison on unrelated charges, confessed to being the Central Park rapist. He provided information that only the perpetrator could have known and his DNA matched that found at the crime scene. On December 19, 2002 the five original defendants were exonerated when their case was vacated by New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles Tejada. Each defendant had served many years in prison. No police or prosecutors were ever charged for their role in this miscarriage of justice.