Yusef Salaam, who gained international attention as one of the wrongfully accused teens in the Central Park Five case, has emerged victorious in the Democratic primary for a seat on the New York City Council.
The Associated Press declared Salaam the winner on Wednesday, after additional votes confirmed his lead. The 49-year-old Salaam had quickly pulled ahead during the primary election, held on June 27, tallying just more than the 50-percent threshold by the end of the evening.
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“I am here because, Harlem, you believed in me,” Salaam told supporters in a victory speech on election night.
The Central Park Five, also known as the Exonerated Five, refers to a group of five young men who were wrongfully convicted of a rape and assault that took place in Central Park, New York City, in 1989. The five individuals are Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise.
The incident occurred on the night of April 19, 1989 when a female jogger was brutally attacked and raped in Central Park. The police, under intense pressure to solve the case, quickly arrested Santana, Richardson, McCray, Salaam, and Wise, who were between the ages of 14 and 16 at the time.
Despite inconsistencies in their confessions and the lack of DNA evidence connecting them to the crime scene, the five young men were convicted in 1990. They each served prison sentences ranging from 6 to 13 years.
n 2002, the case took a dramatic turn when another man, Matias Reyes, who was already serving a prison sentence for unrelated crimes, came forward and confessed to being the sole perpetrator of the Central Park assault. DNA evidence confirmed his guilt and matched him to the crime scene. Following this revelation, the convictions of the Central Park Five were vacated, and they were exonerated in 2002.
The case of the Central Park Five brought attention to issues of racial profiling, coerced confessions, and the flaws in the criminal justice system. It sparked discussions about wrongful convictions, the treatment of juveniles in the legal system, and the importance of protecting the rights of individuals during police investigations.
The story of the Central Park Five was the subject of a 2019 Netflix miniseries called “When They See Us,” directed by Ava DuVernay. The series shed further light on the injustice faced by these young men and the long-lasting impact it had on their lives.