‘Exonerated Five’ share tales of the Central Park case
27th April 2020 · 0 Comments
By Jordan Deloch
Contributing Writer
Two members of the “Central Park Five” now called “the Exonerated Five” shared with White House correspondent April Ryan how their lives had been forever transformed since the night of April 19, 1989, when both of them were falsely charged with the rape and assault of a woman in Central Park.
Kevin Richardson and Raymond Santana joined Ryan in conversation at a public lecture on earlier last month, before the implementation of stay-at-home mandate, as part of the Equity Speaks series presented by the Center for Equity, Justice, and the Human Spirit at Xavier University in New Orleans.
“[In 1989] at the age of 14, these men were fighting for their lives, wrongly accused of a crime they didn’t do, coerced into confessing [to] raping a white woman at Central Park — with no parents around and in fear,” said Ryan before even taking her seat.
Ryan, who served as the Washington, D.C. bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, recalled the timeline of the Central Park case events that lead to arrests, incarceration, their release from prison, and now to the current lives of both Richardson and Santana, touching on issues ranging from ethics within law enforcement, discrimination and mental health.
Richardson shared with the audience how he felt immediately after he was arrested.
“When I think back to thirty-one years, I can only recall how young I was. I’m 45 now. Looking back at how I was treated then at such a young age is terrifying,” said Richardson. “We had it rough being labeled as rapists. In the jails, that was worse than being labeled a child offender back then,” he added.
Ryan outlined how Richardson was manipulated by the police into giving a false testimony and incriminating the other members of the Exonerated Five. She referenced a scene of the 2019 Netflix mini-series based on the Exonerated Five entitled, “When They See Us,” directed by Ava DuVernay, where Richardson is being questioned by the police.
“I didn’t know what was going on. What you saw in the movie actually happened. The lawyer reached over the table and nearly strangled me to get me to confess to something that I did not do,” Richardson said.
Santana also similarly shared how unreasonable the police were being with him during his interrogation.
“I’ll never forget how when I was in custody, the police officers got tired of translating what was going on to my grandmother. I knew then, that I was in trouble, because they did not want to do their jobs,” Santana said.
Ryan said that now that criminal justice reform is back in the headlines, she wanted to discuss how more accountability needs to be put on police officers.
“Back then, that was bad, but even now this problem still exists. Look at Michael Brown in Missouri. He would have still been alive if it wasn’t just a case of a bad cop,” Ryan said.
Both men say they now continue to work with police departments to improve community policing between the African-American community and law enforcement.
“Don’t get me wrong, the police aren’t bad. We believe in good police officers, but we must weed out the bad,” Santana said. “If we cannot do this, we must be willing to do the work to make change happen on our own,” he said.
Both men urged the audience to find ways to get involved in criminal justice reform either through having more African-American representation on police forces or electing more Black judges.
“I’m not here tonight to tell you to become a police officer, a prosecutor, or a chief of police. I am here tonight to tell you that if we occupy those spaces, we can make the difference. Level the playing field, but bring somebody along,” Santana added.
This article originally published in the April 27, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
