Author Archives: mw133374

The Central Park Five argues convincingly that, as with so many other stories of innocent persons wrongly accused, these five men were presumed guilty very early on, and it was a theme in the narrative that could not be ignored. These young men seem to be guilty of their own realities, time served solely because they were the ones that the cops managed to grab out of the park that night for causing trouble or ‘wilding’. There was no physical evidence, only their own confessions. Confessions that were made after hours of intimidation and interrogations, all without lawyers present. The police turned the five of them against one another, making up accusations and evidence. The police coerced five confessions, each of them describing another persons actions, while carefully noting that they didn’t do anything themselves. Determining the real perpetrator was not the only inconsistency in their confessions; timelines, locations and various weapons made it obvious that these were not accurate details. The film constructs a visual timeline that illustrates the impossible confessions.

The film opens with images of Central Park, accompanied by the chilling confession of the real culprit, Matias Reyes. In the scene where Reyes states, “I’m the one that did this”, the documentary is establishing the five defendant’s innocence. As historian Craig Steven Wilder notes, “Their innocence never got the attention that their guilt did.” In that moment, and throughout the film, the grief for youth and innocence lost is almost unbearable.

Megan