Central Park Five: The Story of a Schizophrenic and Divided City - Movie Analysis Essay

Introduction

The central park five movie shows wrongful imprisonment and its effects on New York City over the years. The film brings together all the five men who spent seven years of imprisonment for crimes they never committed. The journalist Jim Dwyer describes the introduction of central park five as a "completely schizophrenic and divided city." (Glass) Residents of more impoverished regions of Harlem and Brooklyn had to live with the reality of frequent crimes and violence caused by drug abuse. This paper gives a detailed discussion of the central park five injustices in New York.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Brutal rape. A white investment banker rape in the city's most beloved park drew attention from most New York residents. The five boys in the park were accused since they were in the park that same night. The residents referred the boys as animal's wilding around in wolf packs. Donald Trump clamored for the death penalty (Glass). Yusef Salaam says if this had been in the 1920's they would have been hanging from trees in central park. The five were sent to prison even if there lacked physical evidence, and confessions used as proof.

Injustice is evident whereby Korey Wise says, "we were innocent who served thirteen years in prison, and we were kids." "And we went through hell." The film shows injustices not only to law enforcement but also on the media and to the residents of New York (Glass). Later the boys are released, but their fight is not over, yet they are against a lawsuit and asked the residents of New York for support in their struggle.

On 19 April 1998, a lady was viciously sexually assaulted. This incident is referred as the central park Jogger, and it's horrible. This event led to the imprisonment of the five boys for thirteen years: Patricia Meili, an old white victim of the crime (Ferri). According to Burns's work, an average of thirty-six persons murdered every week. In the Harlem neighborhood of central park five, a small percentage of me could reach the age of seventy-five compared to Bangladesh. The central park remains a significant position for a felony further than a hundred years.

Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana Jr, and Korey Wise, aged among fourteen and sixteen, were hardly innocent. That night of Meile's attack, they entered the central park, petrifying two riders and joggers thrashing them harshly (Ferri). Later the cyclists reported this to the police, and the teenagers were rough and needed to await the arrival of their parents or guardians. A patrolman found her body in the mud; the young men became suspects. The police received confessions from the group of five, and the teens turned out guilty.

The film by Burns shows much concern about civil rights. Burns explains a description of a declaration of guilt, which provides an impression of ethnic hostility in America. She illustrates the 1899 leeching of Sam Hose as a manual worker blamed for murdering his colored boss and sexually assaulting his spouse (Ferri). Words like a wolf pack, wild criminals are used against blacks during Jim crow Burns makes a connection of these words. From there, it's clear that racism was involved in decision making whether the boys or young men were innocent or not.In October 1989, there was the court trial of the central park five. Afterward, in 2001, Matias Reyes, the deoxyribonucleic acid was examined alongside a semen model from Meile's wallop, and it matched, showing clearly his involvement. Filmmaker Ken Burns daughter follows her manuscript amid the documentation concerning the central park five. A decade later, this injustice continued to remain in people's minds (Ferri). Matias' had a criminal history earlier years before his involvement in rape, murder, and blindfolding his victims to avoid detection. Another form of justice is evident whereby confessions used against them were from NYPD detectives, where they used a combination of lies and luring. The central park five were blackmailed into confessing to having involved in the rape of the jogger.

Even to date, some of the detective's and attorneys refuse to agree that they sent five innocent men to prison. Donald Trump wrote, "At what point did we cross the line from the fine and noble pursuit of genuine civil liberties..." New York city afterward settles the case for a total of forty million dollars, providing a settlement of one-million-dollar for an unjust accusation (Suddler). The agreement for the reimbursement by the judges constitutes a clear prove of imprisonment, which represents injustice in the legal system. The saddest reality of the compensation entails the notion that no amount of money can compensate the years spent in prison for the wrong accusation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the central park five presents a lesson on the miscarriage of justice in the legal system. The film reviewed the hysteria of five men wrongly accused of rape and castigated into accepting the mistakes they never did. The case scenario presents just one of the other cases, the society and innocent people accused of crimes they never committed go through. The legal system consists of marred processes of people sent behind bars while the real criminals still roam freely undetected. These case of misinterpretation arises from incompetent investigators and the need to convince the masses that investigations continue. The trial continues to face ignorance upon a revolution in the political and legal system. The biggest question remains why the victims of the central five park remain deprived of justice even though evidence shows the wrong accusation. The film sheds life on the need for the government to polish the legal system and ensure fairness for every individual.

Works Cited

Ferri, Jessica. "NPR Choice Page." Npr.Org, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2011/07/14/135784800/innocence-and-injustice-in-central-park-five.

Glass, Maggie. "The Central Park Five: Complicity And Injustice In NYC." DOC NYC, 2019 Retrieved from https://www.docnyc.net/festival-news/the-central-park-five-complicity-and-injustice-in-nyc

Suddler, Carl. 2019. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/06/12/how-central-park-five-expose-fundamental-injustice-our-legal-system.