I haven't watched the documentary so I'm not going to comment on it as a work of art. I mention it because last week my mother brought up the movie and how sad it was that the boys went through so much in prison. I wasn't sympathetic and reminded her that her son, that would be me, was almost a victim of "wilding" that very same year. She only has me to take her to the supermarket due to a few factors I'll discuss at the end of this post. In regards to The Five one thing gets lost in the discussion: Even if they didn't beat AND rape the woman, they were up to no good in the park. They were not "innocent". Lets look at
the facts:
“They picked me up by my neck and then by my feet,” he told jurors during the trial for Salaam, Santana and McCray. He said the attackers threw him to the ground and “kept kicking at me and hitting me with their fists.” In their statements, Wise, Richardson, Salaam, McCray and Lopez admitted to attacking Diaz and dragging his body off to the side.
So they admitted to more than the assault on the jogger, who I'll agree got press
because she was white.
Lopez and McCray told investigators that someone grabbed Diaz’s beer and poured it on him. McCray also said a kid named Tony stole Diaz’s food. Four others, according to a motion filed by the district attorney’s office, accused Montolvo, one of the teens arrested and charged, of eating Diaz’s food. Montolvo similarly told police that the group tried to jump a solo biker and then encountered the “bum.” “Everybody,” he said, began kicking him. Montolvo said he ate Diaz’s food while the others continued to beat Diaz.
Again, They clearly weren't all that innocent.
Within 30 minutes of the assaults, several boys were stopped in the park and taken into custody, including Richardson and Santana. Between April 20 and 21, the team of detectives that questioned the Central Park Five also took video statements from Steven Lopez, Clarence Thomas, Lamont McCall, Jomo Smith and Michael Briscoe. Although these individuals said they were in the park with the Central Park Five and detailed other attacks, none of them confessed to sexually assaulting Meili.
In addition to the Central Park Five, Lopez, Briscoe, Thomas, McCall, Antonio Montalvo, Orlando Escobar and Jermaine Robinson were arrested.
Didn't know there were more than 5 people involved eh?
You can read the rest of the piece if you have access to WSJ online. I won't further copy the text. But here's the personal reason why I'm not sympathetic:
In the summer of 1989 I was playing handball in a queens park. At one point the people I was playing with
all decided to leave. I was the only person left. Even the basketball courts were empty. I thought it was odd but continued to play. A guy I didn't know or recognize approached me and asked a question. I don't recall the exact question but whatever it was, it struck me as odd. He left and went towards a corner store where there were a few other people hanging around. I started to play again, but something told me to look around. I looked back in the direction that the guy went in and noticed that the small crowd at the corner store had grown in number. I paused and thought that perhaps I should leave like everyone else had because something was likely to go down. As I exited the handball court cage, I looked back and the crowd was running towards me at full tilt.
I was about to get jumped.
I am a runner. At the time a sprinter who untrained could run an 11 sec 100 meters (for reference that's a second off the women's world record prior to 2011) . I did just that and made it out the park. However; the mob had split up and were going to try to flank me as I was blocked by a major highway. I had only one way to get away from that crowd and that was to cross the highway against traffic. Fortunately there was a red light some 400 meters away that had just turned green so I was able to cross that road before cars reached me. However the mob didn't make it and I was able to get away.
At my high school I witnessed a gang descend upon the school at the end of the day to beat up ONE person. ONE. So I have absolutely no sympathy for any person who participates in such behavior who later has "a hard time in life".
Funny though. Nobody seems to be upset that some chick got beat up in Central Park. Nobody seems to be mad about the men who got beat up and robbed in the park. Like their victimization doesn't even count. Not to mention the untold numbers of people who had been beaten and robbed that never got media or police attention.
