Column: At the DNC, the Exonerated Five remind us that Trump has never cared about justice
Before there were immigrant “monsters” to occupy Donald Trump’s hate, there was the Central Park Five.
Most people know the case: Five Black kids accused of brutally raping a woman in New York City in the spring of 1989, leaving her brain-damaged, naked and gagged.
Within days, police had obtained confessions from the teenagers — ages 14 to 16 — through methods considered today, at best, controversial. Those coerced confessions would lead to the convictions of Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam and Korey Wise — and unjust incarcerations for a crime they had no part of.
Years later, in 2002, through the confession of the real rapist and the advances of DNA evidence, the boys were exonerated — and became known as the Exonerated Five. But it has never been enough for Trump.
The presidential contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is essentially a toss-up at this point, according to pollsters. But Harris stakes out her vision for unifying the country while confronting her opponent.
Nearly two weeks after the attack, Trump took out a full-page ad in the New York Times and three other newspapers, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, to call for the death of the boys.
“BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!” his headline read.
“How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits?” he went on. “Criminals must be told that their CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS.”
That’s more of his weird capitalization, not mine.
But doesn’t it sound familiar? That line could have been from one of his most recent presidential rallies, instead of a rant issued 35 years ago.
Trump has always believed that justice was a white man’s game, or at least a rich man’s right to oversee. Even as science and evidence proved beyond doubt that these five kids had their childhoods brutalized by bad policing, Trump refused to back down. Even after they were awarded $41 million in 2014 for how poorly the police had investigated the case, Trump refused to back down.
When the five won their civil lawsuit, Trump tweeted, “I’d bet the lawyers for the Central Park 5 are laughing at the stupidity of N.Y.C. when there was such a strong case against their ‘clients.’”
He doubled down again in 2016. “They admitted they were guilty,” Trump said in a statement to CNN in October of that year.
“The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same.”
And, in a line that echoed eerily years later in his comments about the Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Va., Trump said of believing in the innocence of the Exonerated Five, “You have people on both sides of that. ... So, we’ll leave it at that.”
Tim Walz delivered an acceptance speech that checked all the political boxes. But he didn’t show much of the joy that he brought to the Democratic presidential ticket.
No, we will not leave it at that. On Thursday, Salaam, Wise, Santana and Richardson spoke at the Democratic National Convention.
“45 wanted us unalive,” said Salaam, now a New York city councilman, referring to Trump.
“He dismisses the scientific evidence rather than admit he was wrong,” Salaam continued. “He has never changed, and he never will.”
It was a powerful moment met with applause. But it should also be met with reflection.
Trump, Salaam said, “thinks that hate is the animating force in America.”
He thought that in 1989 with Black children, and he thinks it now in 2024 with immigrants.
The theme for Thursday night, when Kamala Harris accepts her nomination, is “a just future.”
The Central Park Five were a stark statement that Trump has always advocated vengeance over justice — in the past, and for our future.
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