
The Central Park Five

In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were arrested and later convicted of raping a white woman in New York City's Central Park. They spent between 6 and 13 years in prison before a serial rapist confessed that he alone had committed the crime, leading to their convictions being overturned. Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, this is the story of that horrific crime, the rush to judgment by the police, a media clamoring for sensational stories and an outraged public, and the five lives upended by this miscarriage of justice.
This documentary concludes with a statement, by an historian, to the effect that the frenzied, sensational press coverage of the original trial of the boys was far more extensive than the coverage of the exoneration of the young men. This very fine documentary laid the groundwork for the TV series WHEN THEY SEE US and the subsequent OPRAH PRESENTS special called WHEN THEY SEE US NOW which, perhaps, in some cumulative way corrects the balance and hopefully informs a corrective of the systemic failures of both the justice system and the polarizing attitudes of society that are fuelled by fear, anger, hatred and isolation that corrupts our ability to rise above ourselves. This is an important story, told well. I give this documentary a 9 (superb) ou of 10. [Crime Documentary]