“Central Park Five” is a documentary that was directed by Ken Burns. This film shows society the story of 5 teenagers that were wrongfully accused, persecuted, and jailed for almost their whole adolescent to adult life. It all started in 1989 when Trisha Melli was attacked and raped in Central Park at night. When arriving to the crime scene, police didn’t find much evidence (at that specific time). Originally every case starts with a suspect list that gets narrowed down to the actual criminal. Who would’ve thought that Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, and Yusef Salaam would be convicted based off of no evidence. It was as if police had no other leads and decided to pressure young, unknowledgeable boys into confessing. The confession itself was deceiving because they were under the impression that by confessing to something, anything, they individually would be released. Plant these thoughts into any wrongfully accused, unaware teenage boy, you’ll get them to sign and say anything. Im not entirely sure how they were jailed simply based on a confession that didn’t even match between the five of them. They ended up serving their full roles, until another man Matias Reyes confessed. He is a serial rapist who’s DNA matches the one at the crime scene. Its so interesting to see how media and influence plays a role in law enforcement. Its still mind boggling to see that the police force would go for a suspect that “fits the description” of a criminal instead of actually trying to make society safer and looking for the actual criminal. On top of everything, race plays a role in convicting felons because instead of leading an investigation with matching DNA to evidence, police lead with ‘instinct’ and who looks like they fit the description of the crime.