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Archive 1

Trisha Meili now

How is Trisha Meili doing now? This article talks about her attack in Central park, but how is she doing now?

Excellent. This article is typical of Wikipedia's deficiencies. It is about a criminal case, with almost nothing about the person whose name heads the article. I even remember more about her from newspaper articles years ago, when her identity was revealed. Articles like these make Wikipedia's name a joke. 66.108.4.183 00:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
The only reason we have an article is because of the attack so it's not too surprising. It's really none of our business how she's doing nor is it likely to be of great interest of our readers and most importantly it probably hasn't been covered in a reliable source. This is an encylopedia. You could ask wikinews to try and interview her of course. If she had been notable after the event for example as a campaigner against violence against women for example then perhaps things would be different. But she's not Nil Einne 11:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Had Nil Einne (11:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)), at all familiarized himself/herself with this case, he/she would not have written the preceding paragraph. Ms. Meili instituted a foundation to help victims of violence, and often speaks on their behalf. To claim that Wikipedia readers would not be interested in the fate of a woman who was raped, beaten so badly as to lose over 70 percent of her blood, and left for dead, is presumptuous at best. That Einne is indifferent or contemptuous of the victim’s fate is bad enough; to project that indifference or contempt onto most Wikipedia readers is bloodcurdlingly cold. And that Einne would deny that readers of an encyclopedia would want, ahem, encyclopedic information, is unwittingly comical.

“…and most importantly it probably hasn't been covered in a reliable source.”

But of course she was covered by “reliable sources.” When Ms. Meili revealed herself to whites in early April 2003, she was written up by every major newspaper in New York, and interviewed and profiled on national TV. (From the start, as part of a racist hate campaign, black media had constantly publicized the victims her name to their audience.)

Einne is clearly hostile towards the victim, but is not very good at rationalizing his/her hostility.

70.23.177.216 00:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)24 November 2006 7:32 p.m.

"revealed herself to whites"? Dybryd 16:57, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

)

Violation of Three-Revert Rule

User:130.156.30.59 made four separate reverts on this article today.

Diff: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trisha_Meili&diff=prev&oldid=102929576

Diff: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trisha_Meili&diff=prev&oldid=102929676

Diff: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trisha_Meili&diff=prev&oldid=102930024

Diff: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trisha_Meili&diff=prev&oldid=102930245

User:130.156.30.59 is also known as the Bloomfield College sockpuppets User:130.156.31.143, User:130.156.29.61 ), User:130.156.30.57 and User:130.156.29.134. 70.23.199.239 02:44, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The Crime

I deleted the phrase 'for the sole purpose of attacking whites' from this section. The NYPD review of the case states that the motives for the crime were assault AND robbery. Indeed, many indictments and convictions for the latter were obtained. Also, neither the NYPD review or the DA office's Affirmation in Response to Motion to Vacate mention bias as being a motive, or even whether or not all the victims were white. See the two documents mentioned above, particulary the Summary of Events of April 19th section of the NYPD Review and the History of the Prosecution section of the DA office's Affirmation. Both documents appear in the External Links section of the main article. BaldPete 18:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Vacated vs. Exonerated

Technically the convictions were vacated because the court accepted new evidence namely the admission by Matias Reyes after statue of limitations had expired. A new trial was not sought by the District Attorney and there has never been a rexamination of the evidence by the court of the 1990 trial although the New York Police Department conducted their own review and concluded that the five were probably guilty as charged. [2] patsw 03:30, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

First of all, Reyes' admission of guilt did not count as "new evidence." Police had always possessed the evidence in question -- Reyes' semen on the Jogger's sock -- and had said from the beginning (1989) that they did not have all of the attackers, including the owner of the semen. Second, the court did not "accept" anything; it merely acted on DA Morgenthau's request. The courts do not re-examine evidence; they either admit it or reject it for use in an adversarial proceeding. [The following passage was on 20:05 19 January 2007 deleted by User:130.156.30.57, in violation of Wikipedia rules, which prohibit editors from deleting material from talk pages.] And if anything, Morgenthau was guilty of obstruction of justice for hamstringing the NYPD's new investigation of the case (Morgenthau's ADAs told prisoners who knew Reyes not to cooperate with NYPD investigators, etc.). [End of restored section.] 70.23.177.216 01:41, 25 November 2006 (UTC) 70.23.199.239 23:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Tell us, Nick, what evidence, if any, you have for your claims of possible obstruction of justice. For example, you've stated as fact that Assistant District Attorneys instructed inmates not to cooperate with police department officials. Where is this documented? Were any complaints filed as a result of these alleged activities? Were any investigations done? What was the outcome of these investigations? As I explain here, accusing law enforcement officials of BREAKING the law themselves is a serious allegation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:National_Highway_Traffic_Safety_Administration&diff=129283875&oldid=129042147
130.156.29.61 19:07, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

(:::Such evidence was in this article, but in repeated acts of vandalism, the previous poster, User:130.156.29.61, aka the Bloomfield College Sockpuppetmaster, aka various IP aliases, has censored it. Now, he acts as though the evidence were never provided, and demands to see it. Nice try.

71.247.249.236 (talk) 07:05, 7 December 2007 (UTC))
Note that the Bloomfield College Sockpuppetmaster (User:130.156.30.59, aka User:130.156.29.61, User:130.156.29.134, User:130.156.29.251, User:130.156.30.57, User:130.156.30.176, User:130.156.31.113, User:130.156.31.143 and User:130.156.31.225) vandalized the preceding passage yet again (17:07 24 January 2007, as User:130.156.30.59; previously on 20:05 19 January 2007 as User:130.156.30.57), and has repeatedly vandalized talk pages and violated the WP:3RR (on 23 January 2007 and 24 January 2007, respectively) without penalty. Meanwhile, some of us get blocked merely for disagreeing with people. (‘Having the right politics? Priceless.’)
70.23.199.239 06:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The Bloomfield College Sockpuppeteer

I've been re-researching this case over the last few days, but am going to wait to insert the information and links, in the hopes that in the meantime, the Bloomfield College sockpuppeteer will be blocked. At present, he is up to four IPs:

User: 130.156.30.57

User: 130.156.29.61

User: 130.156.29.134

User: 130.156.31.143

70.23.199.239 23:29, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

(This entire section has repeatedly been deleted, along with other sections detailing abuses by the Bloomfield College Sockpuppeteer, by BCS, in the course of his vandalism attacks. 71.247.249.236 (talk) 08:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC))

"Vandalism attacks"? Those words wouldn't come from the Nick I know. Neither would the "nice try" in this edit. Nick's a writer. Not an objective one, but still a writer. He must be having his kid post for him now! 130.156.31.250 (talk) 22:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Talk

There is much talk in the main article about the origins of the word "wilding" and about Salaam's mother. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.223.218 (talk) 16:41, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


Claims 'that the defendants had "most likely" been Reyes' accomplices in the assault and rape of Meili'

A correction to the [[3]] cited in foot note [9] (McFadden, Robert D. (28 January 2003). "Boys' Guilt Likely in Rape of Jogger, Police Panel Says", New York Times.) states:

"A front-page headline yesterday about a police panel's report on the 1989 Central Park jogger case referred imprecisely to its conclusions about the guilt of five defendants whose convictions were overturned after a serial rapist, Matias Reyes, confessed that he had acted alone in the attack. The report said the five were most likely guilty of having started an attack with sexual overtones on the jogger, who was later raped and beaten by Mr. Reyes. It did not say they were most likely guilty in the rape itself."

The section on convictions vacated should be updated to reflect this. It's late here so I won't atempt it now but I will try to get round to it it the next few days Tallus (talk) 00:31, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Quotes

I don't see how the quotes from the "confessions" add anything to Meili's biography. The quote from the cop is superfluous because the article already says that detectives continue to believe the original defendants are guilty. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 19:17, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the quotes are misplaced and I don't want an edit war. However the reference is missing many important bits of information, such as, the sentences, the interview evidence is important, also the reaction of the police, the police review of the case, perhaps the trial itself, and importantly the fall-out, the issue of compensation, support for the boys from Human rights groups, and perhaps a section on the boys right to sue the proven rapist for damages, but their extraordinary decision to let him away with it !!! Currently I do think the page is lobsidded, it gives an impression the boys were wrongly convicted, while in fact the case was vacated and the police review supports their conviction. So if you want to assist me, lets work on it together, I do think the quotes make astonishing reading, perhaps there is similar quotes from the boys. Tommyxx (talk) 17:51, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
Maybe some of that belongs in Central Park Five. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 18:15, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
Yep, there too, I am only new to the case so I am not professing to be an expert, it is interesting that two of the boys secured degrees while in jail, and perhaps the article could mention the racial dimension including Donald Trump's hate-filled advertisments. Overall there is a lot to do and write on this, could take some time, the police's hiding or should I say ignoring of DNA evidence is also a feture. Food for thought until tomorrow. Tommyxx (talk) 18:49, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

No alibi

The gang of 30 non-white youths seem to have had no alibis at the time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.41.51.240 (talk) 14:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Problems in the lede

  • The 1990 convictions of four were obtained after confessions were signed by the suspects in 1989 and presented at the trial. This is significant enough to include in the lede, and it has been. The December 2009 version of the Central Park Five article mentions this in the intro. It was merged into this Trisha Meili biographical article which then was renamed to the Central Park Jogger case in April 2010.
  • The DNA did not confirm that Reyes acted alone. The DNA gave Reyes' claim in 2002 credibility to support a decision to vacate the convictions of the five. The DNA evidence was never presented as evidence to the court because the DA declined to petition for a new trial. The current wording is misleading. Regarding Reyes the pre-April 6, 2010 article was correct: "the DNA evidence [confirms] his crime" [i.e. the rape of Meili]. The current wording in the lede gets the most basic facts wrong on Reyes and the vacating of the sentences of the five. patsw (talk) 01:31, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I tried to fix the lede a little, but I think it still needs some work. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:43, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Who's a juvenile, minor, and adult?

Juvenile, minor and adult are terms with a common meaning and a slightly altered meaning in New York. In New York City and State, in the juvenile justice system, it is concerned with persons age 7 through 15 inclusive (see the DJJ FAQ and the Wikipedia article Minor (law)#United States. Kharey Wise was 16 at the time of the attack on Meili and therefore not a juvenile according to this definition. Also, the article mentions Yusef Salaam made a false claim to the police to the be 16.

The editors who seem to be battling over this might want to consider the more easily understood term minor to refer to that facts the the five who were convicted in 1990 were all under 18 years of age. patsw (talk) 00:12, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

There doesn't appear to be any "battling". — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 03:20, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

"wrongfully"

There is some discussion of "wrongfully" above, but I will give my view here: This is a term which applies to a arrest, trial, or sentencing, where there was some behavior which is later shown to be "wrong" -- that is either illegal or contrary to some procedure but less than a crime in itself. It was never shown that the convictions were "wrong" in sense that there was misconduct on the part of the police, prosecution, judge, or jury. Now, there is a pending case before the court for wrongful prosecution, the lede should not anticipate a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs. The pre-April 6, 2010 pre-McPherty version of the article did not contain "wrongfully", so this is restoration, not a new edit. patsw (talk) 01:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

The criminal situation is that their convictions were overturned because those convictions were wrong. Whether they later win money about that wrongness is a civil matter that is less relevant.--60.248.69.179 (talk) 15:57, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
The convictions were vacated. This is different from being "overturned" which is not a legal term. There has not been a legal finding that the convictions were wrong. The "wrongness" as you call it cannot be presumed. patsw (talk) 23:38, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Note this is a banned user. John Vandenberg (chat) 09:30, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Edits of April 6 2010 reverted

User:Mcpherty renamed the article and made substantial edits flagged as "minor". I reverted the edits because they are at the level that ought to be discussed here. I disagree that WP:ONEEVENT applies to Trisha Meili, but we can talk about that. patsw (talk) 04:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the changes, although I agree the move should have been discussed. I'm not sure why you think WP:ONEEVENT doesn't apply here. Is Meili notable for anything beside surviving the rape and assault? (I know she's a motivational speaker, but that career seems hardly notable.) — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 04:56, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I also think the name change seems reasonable given WP:ONEEVENT. I haven't reviewed the text changes. Dybryd (talk) 05:41, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Once you sort out Meili's info into one section, I think that it is quite clear that her information beyond the case itself is "not notable". She does not define this crime, no matter how smart she is or how photogenic she is or how she is otherwise a charismatic or attractive victim she might appear to be. Her role in an NPOV version of this story of random violence should be "generic young adult female victim" in the wrong place at the wrong time. Trying to suggest that "who Meili or her personality is" defines this crime is sensationalism and without merit: the lone perpetrator knew nothing about her and *that* defines the nature of this crime.--Mcpherty (talk) 07:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Besides this one tragic event, Meili is not notable. However, the opening paragraph needs copy editing. All five, not four, of the convictions were overturned. The convict who came forward was in jail on an unrelated case. ThatSaved (talk) 19:54, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
The story of Ms, Meili was unique and memorable among thousands of crime victims. Her spirit after recovery is remarkable. Far, far less notable persons have biographical articles, but I since the event is over 20 years old, I concede there's presently a consensus to consider this a WP:ONEEVENT.
This little episode strikes me as strange: Mcpherty had an edit count of 10 when these edits in this article commenced. An article rename is not the usual activity of a novice editor. Several substantial edits were checked off as "minor". The article has been fairly stable for years. The last external reason to update the article might be as far back as 2002. Radical changes in the article and there's no discussion prior to making them... patsw (talk) 00:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Mcpherty is the same banned user as 60.248.69.179 and 61.1.207.27. I recommend either restoring the article to its previous state, or heavily rewriting any segments which have been introduced. --John Vandenberg (chat) 10:51, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Money makes the world go round

What kind of payment and/or moral reparations did the wrongly imprisoned group receive after they were freed? I think it is very important to describe this in the article since the whole story is not finished until the wronged ones are compensated!

This is a good point. There was no suit filed against the city for improper prosecution of the case. In the trial the defendants failed to show that their confessions were coereced. In a case against the city they would have to prove, sucessfully this time, that their confessions were coerced.
On the other hand, the defendants would have an excellent case if they sued Matias Reyes. However, it is doubtful they would receive large monetary damages from Reyes. patsw 14:57, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
It should be noted that the men who were originally convicted have not been found to have been wrongfully convicted. Instead, their convictions were "vacated" in light of this other fellow's claim that he alone did the crime and that there is probable cause to believe he might have done it. None of these men have been exonerated and all of them can be seen on videotape joking about the jogger's injuries and describing in detail how their friends raped and abused her. It is not for any of us to know whether they are innocent or wrongfully convicted. Only they can know that. They're convictions were vacated in light of the new evidence and the DA decided against re-trial. There is some evidence that fellow who has confessed to the crime is mentally incompetant and that he did so to earn protection in prison or as a favor to one or more of the original defendants. I can't say whether that is true or not. All I do know is that the final truth on all of this will never be known. Let's hope Trisha lives a long and peaceful life and that the boys who have been released do the same.


Up-date needed

It is mid-2011, and the text currently reads as follows: "As of late 2009, the suit is yet to be settled.[17][18] In 2009, Ken Burns announced plans to make a film about the case...." 211.225.30.91 (talk) 02:48, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

NPOV tag discussion

Dybryd did a drive-by addition of an NPOV tag [4] on 2007-01-21 without starting a discussion here. I do not see an NPOV issue, so I am removing the tag. If you want to add the tag back, give your reasons here. patsw 15:26, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Patrick, I am going to request we reinsert this tag until Nick documents his comments in the "Convictions Vacated" section, to which I have inserted citation requests.130.156.29.61 19:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
User:130.156.29.61, aka the Bloomfield College Sockpuppetmaster, has repeatedly vandalized this article and this talk page, as can be readily ascertained by a study of the diff histories for both. He has removed evidence contradicting his political position from the article, and then complained that the article lacks such evidence. He has also vandalized this talk page dozens of times, censoring both factual statements contradicting his political position, and discussions of the history of his vandalism and other abuses.71.247.249.236 (talk) 07:41, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
So no citations, huh Nick? Not even a link to one of your VDARE articles? 130.156.31.250 (talk) 22:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I would like to suggest a new NPOV tag for this article because it appears to have been recently edited to support a recently-published book. For instance, the article now implies that the perpetrators were wrongfully convicted en masse, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest this is not true - for instance, ref 4, which as far as I can see has been edited completely out of this entry. A regular editor may be better able to assess this than I, a casual user who doesn't even know how to mark something NPOV! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.128.155.255 (talk) 17:34, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

"Wilding"

It is by no means certain that the youths used the word "wilding." See this. It has always been my understanding that media haze created the word, too. 00:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I have added info here and in Wiktionary citing that the suspects used that word itself. patsw 15:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
According to the NY Chief of Detectives, the suspects used the word. According to several journalists, the detectives misunderstood the suspects when they said that they were "doing the wild thing," quoting the lyrics to a then-popular song. The article in the Village Voice went on:
"The strange thing is, the kids I spoke to uptown in El Barrio [the neighborhood in which the suspects lived] said there's no such word as 'wilding.' When I asked them about it, they laughed at me, looked at me as if I was on the pipe. 'Wilding?' one asked me with his eyebrow cocked. 'I ain't never heard of that.' ... Kareem from Tres Unidos said 'I've heard people say, "Yo, I'm going to do the wild thing," like the from Tone Lōc song, which could mean a guy going to have sex with his girl, or just have a good time. ... But I never heard of [wilding] until I saw it in the headlines.'" — Malik Shabazz | Talk 20:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
The term "wildin" or "wilin" or sometimes "wilin-out" had nothing to do with Tone Loc's song. It was part of urban vernacular in NYC at that time, though the enormous publicity from this case pretty much marked the end of the term's brief use on the street. EyePhoenix (talk) 08:49, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Status of the malicious prosecution case against the city

Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana Jr., and Antron McCray sued the city for malicious prosecution, racial discrimination and emotional distress. -- Vincent, Glyn (July 7, 2009). Huf Po "Ken Burns Illuminates Jogger Case". {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)

Does anyone have status since July 2009 on the case? patsw (talk) 01:50, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The case is still pending as of April 2013, and the young men have organized a social media campaign in conjunction with Ken Burn's film to generate publicity for the law suit.EyePhoenix (talk) 05:25, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Settlement

40 mil, b|tches! Read it in the Daily News. 68.194.26.202 (talk) 01:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Map

I don't mind a better map. But the one used to replace the one just deleted lacks some of the detail mentioned in the first map. For example -- the first named street -- 110 Street. The map is useful because it dovetails with the text, and gives the reader an understanding where the incidents are in relation to the entire park. The new map lacks the detail that the prior one had, which dovetails with the text. If someone can find a third, better, map ... fine. But this map is less good. --Epeefleche (talk) 03:04, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

That makes more sense, though only the relevant parts should be pointed out. I can also create an annotated map with links, like in the article Central Park. Epic Genius (talk) 13:19, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
Also, most of the identifying features are present in this new map, though. Epic Genius (talk) 13:22, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
@Epeefleche: I have reverted to your map for now, but I added a link to Central Park's features. Epic Genius (talk) 16:07, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

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Were The Confessions The Only Evidence?

I'm confused. There are two statements in the article (both referenced, but only one reference seems to support the statement) that seem to contradict each other. They are as follows:
Under "Arrests, interrogations and confessions", "No DNA evidence tied the suspects to the crime, so the prosecution's case rested almost entirely on the confessions."
Under "Trials and sentences", "Jurors interviewed after the trial stated that they were not convinced by the confessions but were impressed by the physical evidence introduced by the prosecutors..."
The former leads me to believe that the only evidence the prosecutors had were the confessions (never mind the fact that DNA evidence was really just beginning to be used and wasn't relied on as much as it seems it is now). The latter sounds like there was plenty of physical evidence and the jurors didn't consider the confessions at all. So, which is the case? 70.94.119.177 (talk) 20:09, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

There was blood and semen on the boys, and a witness who was killed before the trial. The police questioned 37 youths who were in the park that night and charged these five. The documentary omits anything that makes them look remotely guilty.74.139.104.130 (talk) 01:13, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
There was NO DNA evidence linking the five with the jogger, and I'm sure the DA and police would like to hear about this dead witness and how it relates to the case. 107.188.17.205 (talk) 03:06, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Up above, 74.139.104.130 typed: "There was blood and semen on the boys, and a witness who was killed before the trial." There is no such claim entered into the article. It seems to me that this would be important information, but only if verified by reliable sources. IS this verifiable? Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 01:52, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
It's been many years since I last researched the case, but the key evidence against the teenagers was the videotaped confessions. If there was blood on them, it was not the jogger's blood. (They, along with dozens or hundreds of other teenagers, had assaulted other people in Central Park that night.) I don't know anything about semen found on them; the important thing is that their semen was not found in/on the jogger, although the jury was told the DNA in the semen found in/on her was consistent with theirs. (To be fair, DNA testing was fairly primitive at the time.) The IP editor is the only place I've ever heard about a murdered witness. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:16, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Confusion.

Portions of this article is very confusing to me.

  • There are places in the article where authors don't seem to differentiate between the whole gang who entered the Park and the kids arrested for the Central Park Jogger portion of the evening's crimes. A little more differentiation would be helpful.
  • Regarding the Armstrong Report, you wrote: "The report concluded that the five men whose convictions had been vacated had "most likely" participated in the beating and rape of the jogger and that the "most likely scenario" was that "both the defendants and Reyes assaulted her, perhaps successively."". The 5 were not charged with nor tried for any supporting roles in that crime. So, not innocent until proved guilty in a court of law? Also, if they did participate so intimately in the Jogger's assault, would there not be blood on them and their semen on the woman or their fingerprints somewhere? An IP above claims there was blood and semen on their clothing, but offers no source and neither was it entered into the article. if the case was so strong that they assisted in the Jogger attack or any of the others that evening, they would not be given such settlement or removed from the New York State's sex offender registry, no?
  • Due to these points in the Armstrong Report, was there no reaction towards it? No agreements, no denials, no critiques, no rebuttals?
  • Were the CP5 ever charged with any of the other crimes that occurred in the Park that evening? Was there any vetting of the eyewitnesses who claimed they had seen the CP5 committing the attack on the Jogger, or on anybody else? Was anybody charged with any of the other crimes that were perpetrated that night? If so, were there any convictions?
  • Given the explosive news coverage, the spilling of the younger boy's names in the press, and those Trump ads calling for a return to the death penalty, was there no motion to move the trial elsewhere? There's nothing here about the jury selection process - any difficulties finding non-prejudiced jurors on that score?

If those of you who are knowledgeable about this case have any answers to clear my confusion, I will be grateful. Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 04:03, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Daily Beast Source Reliable?

I'm a little concerned looking at a source from the daily beast. There seems like there might be two significant issues with this source. 1) It appears to offer quotes from individuals which aren't presented in other sources, and 2) it seems to be written by a former detective whose articles all seem to involve a pro-police perspective. I'm concerned there may be WP:N issues with this source and would like to blank all the content we have which is solely attributed to it. NickCT (talk) 20:33, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi Nick. Long time no see. It looks to me like an opinion column, not a news source, and it should be used as a reliable source only for Edward Conlon's opinion per WP:RSOPINION.
Having said that, I would err on the side of caution before blanking anything sourced solely to Conlon. It may have been used for convenience by a Wikipedia editor who thought it was a reliable source for facts, and it may (or may not) be relatively easy to find alternate sources for some of the statements in the article that cite Conlon as the source. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 21:55, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
It's been too long Malik Shabazz.
Concur re "opinion column".
As I see it, the content is problematic, b/c it seems to purports to relay fairly incriminating confessions made by the former suspects. Oddly, if you look for other sources to corroborate some of the statements supposedly made, you'll find more opinion pieces/3rd rate journalism. I'm concerned, b/c I get the sense some of what is being relayed is heresy.
For instance, I tried to verify the "Antron did it" confession in other sources. I can't find sources prior to 2002 which note this statement. Extremely odd that one of the suspects would have said something like this, but it didn't get reported until 10 years after the fact?
While I take your point re "convenience", I also think that we shouldn't be relying on "convenient" sources for material which could potentially be quite controversial. NickCT (talk) 22:21, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Ten or Eleven Total?

The article claims six others were arrested and convicted, citing Reference 28, but that source asserts that the total number arrested and convicted was ten. Lewis Goudy (talk) 22:57, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Naming the Article

central park jogger gives 11,000 hits. Trisha Meili 1,000. So it should be moved back. BL 05:33, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I disagree. The current name conforms to our naming conventions. The Google Test is not the be all and end all of these things. Martin 20:25, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

A&E Television American Justice Analysis of the case

Thursday, April 19 11:00am ET 2007 Thursday, April 19 5:00pm ET 2007 An examination of the case that has rocked the justice system in New York for over a decade. Five black teenagers were convicted of the 1989 rape of a white investment banker, then exonerated in 2002 when another man confessed to committing the crime alone. But some believe the teens were still involved. Includes interviews with three of the accused whose convictions were vacated after spending years in jail.

http://www.aetv.com/american_justice/aj_episode_guide.jsp?episode=135432

Crime Statistics

I added the word 'City' to the sentence "The crime, one of 3,254 rapes reported in New York City that year," because I think it is important to make a distinction between crime statistics for the City and for the State. In 1989 there were 5,242 forcible rapes reported state wide. Of those 3,254 (62.1%) were committed in the City of New York. Reference for state statistic: [5] I do not know the source for the statistic used in the article for the city rape statistic, as I can't find an exact number on-line. The estimates all seem to put it at around 3,200, so I am giving the author the benefit of the doubt that his number is accurate.

Paragraph removed

I have removed the following paragraph as dubious and unsourced. Although a ref tag is included, it simply goes to another Wikipedia article which does not mention Meili. Someone may want to find an actual third-party source and also provide an argument for the relevance of this digression about one particular unsuccessful defense argument.

[I am removing the deleted paragraph from talk. I believe that it was low-profile trolling with borderline BLP problems, so as no one seemed inclined to defend it, I prefer not to have it preserved on the talk page any more than in the article.]

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Isn't the following a BLP violation?

"Despite the analysis conducted by the District Attorney's Office, New York City detectives maintained that the defendants had "most likely" been Reyes' accomplices in the assault and rape of Meili." It sure seems close.144.35.45.54 (talk) 17:32, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
No, not by a long shot. Unless you think the article is smearing the New York detectives who refuse to believe the evidence. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 21:46, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Hell no, I think the opinions of the unnamed detectives who elicited the false confessions should not be aired here on wikipedia!!144.35.45.37 (talk) 22:29, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
There is no evidence that they elicited "false confessions". Four of the five boys confessed in the presence of their parents, who had no objections at the time to their treatment. Unschool 04:20, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

A comparison of the statements reveals troubling discrepancies. ... The accounts given by the five defendants differed from one another on the specific details of virtually every major aspect of the crime—who initiated the attack, who knocked the victim down, who undressed her, who struck her, who held her, who raped her, what weapons were used in the course of the assault, and when in the sequence of events the attack took place. ... In many other respects the defendants' statements were not corroborated by, consistent with, or explanatory of objective, independent evidence. And some of what they said was simply contrary to established fact.[1]

Spacecowboy420 (talk) 13:01, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Affirmation in Response to Motion to Vacate Judgment of Conviction: The People of the State of New York -against- Kharey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana, Defendants" (PDF). Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York County. December 5, 2002. Retrieved June 22, 2007.

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Infobox and other edits

I have cleaned up the infobox in this article and removed many of the additional unnecessary parameters. This infobox is supposed to contain "quick glance" information but it contained prose instead. I removed the prose and replaced it with short bullet points.

I also made this edit to clear out duplicate info and remove unreliable sources. It doesn't seem like centralparkjogger.org is a reliable source, nor do we need nine sources for a single statement per WP:CITEKILL. I moved the "Victim" section below the "Attack" section and combined the two sections that mention the attack. I shortened the section names and divided them based on chronological order mostly, except for the "Victim" and Trump sections. epicgenius (talk) 22:39, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Voice

I'm not sure who watches here, but I'd like some feedback. The wrongful prosecution and conviction of the Central Park 5 is not sufficiently prominent in this article. The omniscient voice walks us not through the events of that night, but through the original prosecutor's version. That needs to be rewritten. The lede itself begins by mentioning their arrest, before mentioning the actual assailant. And the miscarriage of justice is downplayed. A substantial rewrite is necessary. I'll try to work on it. Jd2718 (talk) 22:38, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

@Jd2718: The assailant wasn't found until later, so it's good as is. The article reflects the chronological order of the sections, mostly. We would want to mention the Central Park 5 first because their arrests and convictions happened first, chronologically. The real assailant was found much later. I agree that this needs a rewrite, and I've reordered some sections (see below), but it's the grammar I'm worried about. epicgenius (talk) 23:25, 19 January 2018 (UTC) Edit: fixed username. epicgenius (talk) 23:32, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
The lede's chronological version is misleading, because it turned out what was reported in the beginning was not accurate. Chronology should structure part of the body, but in this case, not the lede. Thank you for the overall cleanup. Jd2718 (talk) 00:26, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

"Despite the fact that DNA tests on the rape kit excluded them as the source"

I removed this language from the lead section, where it was recently added (restored, if I'm not mistaken). This is the diff adding the phrase:

Despite the fact that DNA tests on the rape kit excluded them as the source, the five juveniles were convicted in 1990 by juries in two separate trials.

The added phrase, in bold, suggests that the juries heard about the DNA tests, ignored the results, and convicted the youths. First, I don't believe they were told. Second, in 1990, DNA did not compel the same respect in court proceedings that it does 25+ years later. But most importantly, the phrase puts the blame on the wrong parties. It should say, "Despite the fact that DNA tests on the rape kit excluded them as the source, D.A. Robert Morgenthau and prosecutor Linda Fairstein went ahead and charged the five juveniles." The article says "Since no DNA evidence tied the suspects to the crime, the prosecution's case rested almost entirely on the confessions" but "Jurors who were interviewed after the trial said that they were not convinced by the confessions, but were impressed by the physical evidence introduced by the prosecutors: semen, grass, dirt, and two hairs 'consistent with' the victim's hair recovered from Richardson's underpants". Put the responsibility where it belongs: on out-of-control prosecutors who were so hungry for a win that they shirked their professional responsibilities, ginned up a case, and put innocent teenagers in prison. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 00:19, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Stabbing

There are several statements in this article that say the victim was stabbed. However, none of the sources state that. I am going to remove those statements.

Ukvilly (talk) 19:18, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Wilding

With all the charm of a long term Wikipedian, which is to say none whatsoever, someone insists on restoring unsourced information in the lead, which is not only inaccurate, it’s also not found in the body of the article. Indeed, source after source explains where the term “wilding” originated, and they don’t mention *anything* approaching (emphasis added) “The crime spawned the incorrect use of the term "wilding" as the unprovoked gang assault on a stranger”. If we take the sources at their word (and I do), the attacks (as in plural) refer to the attacks that occurred throughout Central Park that evening. That is the term (amongst others) what reliable sources used to describe the lawlessness. That they got the term from the police, or whether or not the police were were “incorrect” by misunderstanding “Wild Thing” for “wilding” is irrelevant because the sources used the word as noted in the NYT, which quotes the OED stating, “The action or practice by a gang of youths of going on a protracted and violent rampage in a street, park, or other public place, attacking or mugging people at random along the way; also, an instance of this” which describes the events that night in Central Park to a 'T'.

Are we really going to credit the events for “spawning” the term and in the same sentence say its usage by reliable sources is incorrect? That man from Nantucket (talk) 03:00, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for posting here. I don’t think the reference to “wilding” needs to be in the lede at all. The term is introduced in the first paragraph below that (under the heading “Attacks”) and I don’t see any dispute over the wording there. Newyorkbrad (talk) 07:17, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
Did either of you read the article or its sources? The term "Wilding" was made up by the police, based on their misunderstanding of what the arrested youths said:
According to a police investigation, the main suspects were gangs of teenagers who would assault strangers as part of an activity that became known as "wilding". New York City detectives said the term was used by the suspects themselves to describe their actions to police.[7] This account has been disputed by some journalists, who say that it originated in a police detective's misunderstanding of the suspects' use of the phrase "doing the wild thing", lyrics from rapper Tone Lōc's hit song "Wild Thing".[8][9]
So yes, this was the source of the word, but it was used incorrectly. And I agree that it doesn't belong in the lead section. — MShabazz Talk/Stalk 14:21, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
I don’t care if it’s in the lead or not, but the only thing that is incorrect here is your “opinion”. Even if we were to assume that some of the sources are correct, “wilding” should be best described as a malapropism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by That man from Nantucket (talk • contribs) 22:33, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
I don't think that word means what you think it means. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 22:38, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Deletion

An editor deleted text here supported properly. The edit summary reads "COI." But there is no Conflict Of Interest. Please explain. Or restore. It does not seem proper to delete text and its support without a proper reason. --2604:2000:E010:1100:4574:D16A:D046:60D9 (talk) 06:01, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

"Major News Story"

It seems strange to me to define this case as a "major news story," as if it were only notable for being heavily covered in the media, or as if the event only happened on the news, rather than existing independently of it and then being reported on after. Furthermore I can't think of any other criminal case which is described this way on Wikipedia. Wouldn't it be better to call it something like a "criminal incident." Compared to a few other controversial incidents that involved race and allegations of injustice, the OJ Simpson case is described as a "criminal trial," the Dreyfus Affair as a "political scandal," and the Duke lacrosse case as a "widely reported 2006 criminal case." Even this last instance only mentions the media as a qualifier to the actual description. Why is this exception in being defined as a news story above all else? 206.45.7.58 (talk) 05:37, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Agree, I've amended. Pincrete (talk) 17:13, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Subsection title (and word wrongfully)

"Lawsuits by wrongfully convicted suspects" . I mean, their's sentences were vacated but that doesn't mean they didn't do it. I would leave out wrongfully. It leaves sour taste. As Armstrong report said they knew too much and 4/5 (!!!) admitted it - admitted they raped and almost killed a woman but then changed their minds when a guy (who left semen) serving a life sentence confessed to it and only after the statute of limitations had passed. So I would leave out wrongfully, because to anybody who reads this and has some brain matter this stinks. So leave out wrongfully to be objective.Setenzatsu (talk) 20:23, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. First, your proposal is based on incorrect assumptions. None of the five individuals confessed to raping the victim, as you claim. They each only confessed to having witnessed her rape. This is a matter of record in the case.[1] Also, the convicted individuals did not change their story only after a new confession came to light in 2002; in fact, they recanted their confessions shortly after they were made and pleaded not guilty in court in 1990, which is why there was a jury trial. Second, while you are correct that a vacated conviction does not necessarily mean a convicted individual is actually innocent, in this case, the government office responsible for prosecuting the case declined to file new indictments against the Central Park Five. In other words, they had the opportunity to pursue a retrial against the five men, but determined that "no purpose would be served by a retrial on any of the charges."[2] Which means not only did the government agree with the defendants that their original conviction would have been unlikely if the new evidence from 2002 had been available, it also acknowledged that it did not have a strong-enough case against these men to charge them with any crime. Further, the government repeatedly stated in its court filing that the new suspect who came forward in 2002 provided credible and convincing evidence, which, combined with its decision not to pursue the Central Park Five in a retrial, means the government accepts that suspect's version of events. For the above reasons--the five men were convicted of a rape to which, by the government's own admission, they did not confess and for which no credible evidence was presented to implicate them, and the government has tacitly admitted, by declining to pursue a retrial, that their original conviction cannot be defended--it's accurate to describe the Central Park Five as having been "wrongfully convicted." This is, in fact, language that has been widely used to describe this case. The Mayor of New York City has described the conviction as an "injustice," and New York City's legal counsel publicly stated that "the evidence suggests that these five young men were wrongfully convicted."[3] The case is also referred to in peer-reviewed journals as an example of wrongful conviction.[4][5] IbIANTiA (talk) 12:37, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "People v. Wise". Leagle.com.
  2. ^ "Affirmation in Response to Motion to Vacate Judgment of Conviction" (PDF). huffingtonpost.com.
  3. ^ "Settlement is Approved in Central Park Jogger Case, but New York Deflects Blame". nytimes.com. Retrieved 1 June 2019.
  4. ^ "The Central Park Five, the Scottsboro Boys, and the Myth of the Bestial Black Man". SSRN.com. Elsevier. Retrieved 1 June 2019.
  5. ^ "Transforming the Central Park jogger into the Central Park Five: Shifting narratives of innocence and changing media discourse in the attack on the Central Park jogger, 1989-2014". Sage Publications. Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal. Retrieved 1 June 2019.
IbIANTiA, I don't disagree with any of your substantial points, but sympathise marginally with the initial argument above. Firstly I think the title is (marginally) trying to 'argue the case' and is a bit therefore 'clunky' and marginally NPOV. Secondly, because this is a legal case, I think we should be legally precise, or at least avoid imprecision. There is a subtle distinction between "wrongfully" and "wrongly", the first implies some wrongdoing on the part of police/prosecution, (which is still contested AFAIK) the second simply implies that the wrong conclusion was reached at trial. Certainly the 'vacate' judgement concludes that it felt that it was extremely unlikely that the initial trial would have resulted in a guilty verdict had all info been available at the time. It goes even further and says the 'one person acting alone' was wholly consistent with that individual's MO, as were other details, such as the 'tying up'. It even dismisses the one piece of physical evidence (hairs) tieing one of the boys to the crime - so yes, the vacate judgement comes as close as is imaginable to saying "these boys didn't do it". The absence of a retrial is a tacit admission that no credible evidence exists to convict the boys. Nonetheless, technically what has occurred, is a judgement that the initial conclusion would not have been reached had all info been known, and in that sense, should be nullified. In UK law we have terms like 'unsafe' and 'unsound' to describe verdicts which are later found to be legally or evidentially unreliable - it has pretty much the same effect as the 'vacate' decision, ie we all go back to square one and either retrial, or admit that a retrial would be unlikely to succeed.
I wondered if some 'purely factual' description, would address these points, ie bypass legal niceties. Something like "Lawsuits against NY City"? Pincrete (talk) 11:29, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Pincrete. I'm not sure where you're deriving a definition of "wrongful" that implies malicious intent, but from what I can see, that word is a common legal term that simply means incorrect or unjust. Black's Law Dictionary states that wrongful means without just cause or not using legal channels. Merriam Webster's Legal Dictionary defines wrongful as constituting a wrong or injurious to the rights of another. In neither example does the definition include anything about motivation. Obviously, in this case the prosecution used legal channels, but according to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the NY State Supreme Court, the convictions were wrongful--there is no other reason to vacate a conviction. (Either the accused are found to be actually innocent or some technicality or procedural mistake rendered the process unjust, but either way, the outcome is deemed wrongful. And again, the fact that the DA's office refused to retry the case suggests that they believe the defendants are actually innocent.) And again, this is the language that is commonly used about this case. It appears in reputable media, in peer-reviewed journals and books, and in academic courses at law schools and colleges, where the "Central Park Five" case is used as a textbook example of wrongful conviction. I understand that some people disagree with the outcome of the case, but, in my opinion, an encyclopedia entry should not be written from their POV, nor should it be written in such a way as to try to placate everyone. This would be like refusing to describe the Earth as round in its Wikipedia entry simply because some people insist it's flat. There is an official record for this case, and according to that record, "wrongful conviction" is the factual, objective term to use.
That being said, the subsection could always be renamed on stylistic grounds. As you said, it's a bit clunky. It could simply be "Post-Vacatur Lawsuits" or something like that. But I don't think we should be of the mindset that "wrongful" is a somehow tainted word to be avoided in this article. From what I can see, it's the legally correct term. IbIANTiA (talk) 14:22, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
I note that the term "wrongfully convicted" is widely used in the sources, though sometimes qualified, by a "probably" or somesuch. Perhaps the distinction between "wrongfully" and "wrongly" is a UK distinction only (where "wrongful arrest" means police behaved improperly, rather than just "got it wrong"). An alternative term I came across (in NY Times), was "exonerated", though given the widespread use of "wrongfully" in sources, I wouldn't press the matter.Pincrete (talk) 12:58, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
Ah, sorry, didn't see this until after I posted my response above. Thanks for following up. IbIANTiA (talk) 14:28, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Neutrality disputed?

I corrected a very misleading section which made it sound as if 4 male parkgoers were knocked unconscious that night, not 2, as seems to be the case. This section was either negligent or malicious. I have doubts about the neutrality of parts of this article, which affects living persons and is extremely controversial. Does this article need a neutrality disputed template? Zekelayla (talk) 07:32, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I'd also note that the page is being regularly vandalized and reverted.Zekelayla (talk) 08:36, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for correcting this. I also found it confusing that there was no real summary of the events related to other people who were attacked. Have to look again; in one place I think someone said there were eight victims in the park in addition to Meili. Conlon in his Daily Beast article said that five other suspects had been convicted for those other assaults. There must have been some coverage of that by media at the time, so perhaps we can find sources. This seems incomplete, as the events are referred to in part of the article, but not the prosecution or resolution of the charges.Parkwells (talk) 19:13, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
Given the coverage of the events and trial, and events since then, it seems that information is lacking on exactly what the suspects endured, in terms of length of time interrogated, issues of parents or lack of counsel, etc. I am also trying to clarify how many victims there were and how many other youths were prosecuted for the crimes in the park. The Morgenthau report seems to cover all this but am still going through it. I think we should use such official sources of record and contemporary news articles rather than the 2014 Conlon article when referring to the facts in the early days of the case. Parkwells (talk) 19:24, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Representation in other media - Upcoming Opera

In the section about the upcoming opera, the link to Anthony Davis should be removed as it links to the basketball player, and the composer does not have his own page. Correction: The composer does have his own page, so the link should be changed to Anthony_Davis_(composer)

Done, Thankyou. Pincrete (talk) 17:45, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

RFC on deletion of referenced text

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Consensus to exclude. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 15:49, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Do editors prefer the inclusion of the text deleted:

--2604:2000:E010:1100:D19A:AA59:9447:622F (talk) 02:22, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Please make clear that you're the same person, and change the RfC itself by replacing the language starting with "This specific text and footnotes..." R2 (bleep) 18:53, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
I am the same person as listed the RFC. Made other R2 suggested change.--2604:2000:E010:1100:ED97:35BB:CCA2:95DC (talk) 04:19, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Support mention of "sixth" unknown assailant theory advanced at trial. This is important and, if properly sourced, should be included. I assume that the "sixth unknown assailant theory" is what we are talking about. If not, feel free to disregard. Switching this RfC up is a bit confusing.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 00:06, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Exclude all. At least with the proposed sourcing. The cited NY Daily News source for the "sixth unknown assailant theory" doesn't verify the content. It just quotes a former prosecutor saying what was said at trial. The prosecutor is not a reliable source. Moreover, even if the material is accurate, it sticks out as awkward and non-neutral in the lead and doesn't seem sufficiently important. The bits about what happened to the teenagers after release from prison is definitely not worthy for inclusion on the lead section, and might not even be sufficiently noteworthy for inclusion in the body. R2 (bleep) 19:42, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Exclude I don't believe contemporary coverage supports the former prosecutor's recent assertion that the juries were told about a sixth assailant. See Monday morning quarterback. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 01:57, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Exclude The proposed edits--adding to key info in the article quotes from a prosecutor upset with the official resolution of the case, and modifying text to suggest that evidence exists to doubt that resolution--strike me as non-neutral. The article already states that some parties disagree with the outcome of the case, but it should not be written from the POV of one of those parties. IbIANTiA (talk) 15:41, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Exclude, this appears to be an attempt by the former prosecutor - and to some extent by the IP editor here - to 'retry' the case, despite overwhelming legal agreement that the original verdict was unsound. There is little coverage of the prosecutor's objections. Public trial isn't what we do, and as IbIANTiA says, "The article already states that some parties disagree with the outcome of the case", perhaps the ref used could be added to that sentence. Were we to include, we would necessarily cover refutations of his arguments and the result would be an unnecessarily tit-for-tat, back and forth. Additionally, anything said by the prosecutor would need to be framed as his claim, not in WP:VOICE, which would worsen the muddle for little net gain. At the risk of contradicting myself, by arguing the case here, personally, I find his objections very weak. His claim that the jury was informed of a sixth unknown attacker, seems based on the novel argument that because DNA did not match the five, it was clear that the jury was directly informed that a sixth person existed. His final comment. "It’s unconscionable to me that anyone thinks they were not in the park that night and were not causing mayhem", well I don't think anyone has ever thought that the boys were not in the park, nor that they were there to spot butterflies, or pick daffodils. They were almost certainly engaged in some level of teenage misbehaviour. What is doubted is whether there is the smallest reason to think they perpetrated a barbaric attack and rape. As another source (a NY detective reviewing the case) says: to include a truly gruesome rape and near-murder among the lesser acts of violence tainted the process beyond remedy. It was as if the five were charged with fifty counts of shoplifting, and one of strangling a grandmother. Pincrete (talk) 12:55, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Exclude, I thought that the prosecution admitted the DNA at the scene matched none of the defendants, but they tried to get around it by saying that it was inconclusive, not that there was a sixth assailant. This sounds like the deputy trying to fit Reyes into a group. It would be better to have an RS reporting on such testimony at the time, or an evaluation, rather than his retrying the case years later.Parkwells (talk) 19:36, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Rework article in view of later events

The article still seems biased toward the first two years of news coverage related to the prosecution and trial, and the sense of the crimes against the jogger when first discovered. I think we need to rework it to present more basic information about each of the five defendants and their families, as they were victims in this case, too. They were and are individuals, they served sentences of varying lengths, they have followed different paths since getting out of prison, and 4 of the 5 have their adult lives away from NY. They have married, worked, and had families. Korey Wise donated a large sum of money from his settlement to an Innocence Project; Yusef Salaam has worked on social justice and prison reform, they received a settlement from the state in 2016, and little of that is covered here.Parkwells (talk) 22:26, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I am editing to present more about each of the individuals. I am also emphasizing content that is important in a better chronological sense; for instance, rather than present material disagreeing with Morgenthau's recommendation to vacate the convictions in that section, I have placed some with the Armstrong Report (which the material and cite referred to), or later comments that were made in 2014 when the settlement was announced. Parkwells (talk) 16:04, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Need more info of background in NY?

A number of sources have noted the context of events and tensions in NY as contributing to the media furor and push to identify suspects. Should this be covered in this article?Parkwells (talk) 19:02, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

How to treat renewed 2019 coverage after release of DuVernay's film?

A question editors need to consider is whether and how we should treat the renewed attention to this case and the individuals involved since the release of DuVernay's film. Some material is covered in the article on that film, and in articles about individuals affected, including those specifically responding to adverse public opinion and actions by other parties (such as Fairstein and Lederer, who have resigned from some positions, or been subject to petitions, and Fairstein's publisher and agent have dropped her). It is a question as to whether such content belongs here or elsewhere, at a time of other reckoning with state and federal justice systems, and certain reforms underway at federal and state levels in NY and elsewhere; e.g. new prosecutors in Philadelphia, Jacksonville and Tampa, FL, who are making changes to practices, etc.Parkwells (talk) 21:24, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Clean up sources

Numerous facts are cited to several sources, but they are over-cited when these are not controversial. I deleted two self-help books (Survivors Club and another) that were written well after the case that use Meili as an example of survival/recovery; their cites repeated news accounts about her injuries in 1989, and did not add anything to that part of this article. Have also moved cites to later articles that refer to events in the context of Meili speaking to schools, etc. Keep those with her as a speaker, not to establish early facts in case. They are simply repeating earlier news accounts. Parkwells (talk) 20:53, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

I question using Mark Goldblatt's 2002 opinion piece in the National Review as a source about the origin of the term "wilding". He likely copied the idea from Barry Michael Cooper's earlier May 1989 article in the Village Voice, which was published soon after the press conference in which the police first used this term. Also, Goldblatt's piece was written to express his opinion and disagreement with the exoneration of 2002; it is not a journalistic report. I propose to delete it as a cite for that content and will put it as an External link. Parkwells (talk) 22:19, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 June 2019

In the section entitled "Attacks", the first paragraph discusses the term "Wilding", & the controversy around the origins of the word. The police claiming that the word originated from the youths arrested that night, and some journalists claiming that it was invented by the police. I have made a discovery regarding the term "wilding" while researching the original police interviews. In the police interview of Michael Briscoe, an associate [though not one of the five who were charged with rape] who participated in the events that night, & pleaded guilty to the violent offences, introduces police to the word "wilding". The interview was on 22/04/89… and at 00:51:04 the following exchange takes place:

Police: “Did anybody tell you that there were plans for that night?” Briscoe: “No, they just told us the day before that between two thirty and three ‘o’ clock they told us, Raymond…” Police: “What did Raymond tell you?” Briscoe: “They said don’t forget about Wednesday night” Police: “Did he say what you were gonna do on Wednesday night?” Briscoe: “He said that at 8 o clock, we were gonna go ‘wilding’, that’s it” Police: “Wilding?” Briscoe: “Yes” Police: “What does that mean?” Briscoe: “Whatever happens, like, go around, hitting people, stuff like that” Police: “I can’t hear you very well there’s…” Briscoe [louder]: “Going around, punching, hitting on people. Things like that.” Police: “And taking things from people, is that what part of what ‘wilding’ is?” Briscoe: “Yes, if they come across that”

the videotaped interview is contained here [the transcription is mine, but I believe it to be accurate], and i'd like an editor to look into editing this article to reflect the truth - because the narrative that the term was an invention by the police is wrong [1]

Domcoke (talk) 19:46, 1 June 2019 (UTC) Domcoke (talk) 19:46, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ http://www.nyc-cpj.org/Home/folder?container=original-investigation-and-prosecution&name=https://nyccpjstorage.blob.core.windows.net/original-investigation-and-prosecution/Audios%20and%20Videos/
 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. – Levivich 23:38, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

The source I have provided is a PRIMARY source. It is the original police interview. Did you watch it? Domcoke (talk) 09:17, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Here is a direct link to the police interview of Michael Briscoe: https://nyccpjstorage.blob.core.windows.net/original-investigation-and-prosecution/Audios%20and%20Videos/NYCLDVideo_005_Video%20Statement%20of%20Michael%20Briscoe_4-22-1989.mp4 This has been published by the New York City Law Department http://www.nyc-cpj.org/home - and therefore I believe it to be compliant with Wiki guidelines on "reliable sources: "The term "published" is most commonly associated with text materials, either in traditional printed format or online. However, audio, video, and multimedia materials that have been recorded then broadcast, distributed, or archived by a reputable party may also meet the necessary criteria to be considered reliable sources. Like text sources, media sources must be produced by a reliable third party and be properly cited. Additionally, an archived copy of the media must exist. It is convenient, but by no means necessary, for the archived copy to be accessible via the Internet." Domcoke (talk) 09:46, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank God this article has been protected! We wouldn't want anyone to tell the truth! :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.176.246.91 (talk) 15:22, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

What is being asked for is what at WP is called WP:OR, ie assessing primary material to reach a conclusion/examine the evidence ourselves. Like it or not, that isn't what we do here, we leave that to professionals. What we do is collate the best available secondary and tertiary sources (ie books, articles etc). Pincrete (talk) 16:19, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
So wikipedia, as a resource, is beholden to the often poor [and possibly politically] slanted research of journalism? That staggers me. It allows untruths to fester in the public domain, simply because journalists don't have the will to properly research their subject. Domcoke (talk) 17:30, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
If you choose to see it that way! WP is imperfect sometimes, perhaps, but I would take a lot of persuading that a "free for all" of amateurs would inherently create a less-biased, more authorative result overall. There are tons of places out on the net where people can advance their own theories - some establish some credibility! This isn't one such place. Pincrete (talk) 19:04, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Back to the subject in hand, what the article says is "New York City detectives said the term was used by the suspects themselves to describe their actions to police.[7] This account has been disputed by some journalists, who say that it originated in a police detective's misunderstanding of the suspects' use of the phrase "doing the wild thing", lyrics from rapper Tone Lōc's hit song "Wild Thing. So nobody as far as I can see is claiming that police 'invented' the term (except inadvertently perhaps adding it to the common vocabulary, because of a mishearing). The text you give above supports both interpretations. I can't access the recording, but even if I could, how would I know that I wasn't mishearing, just as the police may have done. In the last resort, what does it matter to anyone except a fairly esoteric argument as the precise origin of the word? No one claims that police lied about what they heard and understood AFAIK. Pincrete (talk) 19:29, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Firstly: This isn't a theory. It's demonstrably true. The video speaks for itself, with the word "wilding" repeated several times by the police. Secondly, the "This account has been disputed by some journalists" is clearly true. It has been disputed. But this video undermines that dispute rather concretely. By letting that stand uncorrected, it implies a false equivalence. Journalists can dispute all sorts of things, without any veracity whatsoever. For example Climate Change: I'm assuming that the page on Climate Change doesn't contain references to the fact that some journalists dispute climate change. Or some journalists dispute the fact the holocaust even happened. Why give any credence at all to what journalists dispute, if that dispute is demonstrably untrue. Because, the above theory about misunderstand lyrics is WRONG... it's false. It's a lie. Because the truth is, that the police were exposed to the word by a perpetrator in that case, and it was explained what the word meant. It is clear. Here is a youtube version of it: [1] Also: to suggest that no-one claims the police made it up is a huge mischaracterisation about the perception of the word, and the events at the time - Many people claim that the word was a media invention. And this permeates much of the commentary around the case now. Domcoke (talk) 20:22, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
If I may, why don't you simply find reputable sources that say what you're saying? It took me about two minutes, via a Google Scholar search, to find an article called "The Roots of 'Wilding': Black Literary Naturalism, the Language of Wilderness, and Hip Hop in the Central Park Jogger Rape" by Stephen J. Mexal, a professor at Cal State Fullerton. It was published in the Spring 2013 issue of African American Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal. It turns out it's a free download on academia.edu, all you need to do is sign up for an account and then you can access the article. Of course, there may be other reputable sources out there, as well. I hope this helps. IbIANTiA (talk) 23:12, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. I think there's been enough back and forth that it's clear there is not yet consensus for this inclusion and there may even be material problematic by policy and guideline. Please feel free to reactivate if and when there is consensus for inclusion. Izno (talk) 20:49, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
The police used the term "wilding" in their press conference of April 21, 1989, before the interview quoted above, as the NY Times quoted the NYPD in an article on the press conference of April 22, 1989. (I have added the NY Times article as a cite in this article related to the 4/21 press conference, which has been placed under a sub-header, in which the police laid out their theory of the attack on the female jogger and others in the park.)Parkwells (talk) 13:51, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Note two others indicted for Meili rape

Two other youths, Steve Lopez and Michael Briscoe, were indicted for the assault and rape of Meili, and appear in a photo of defendants and counsels at the first trial, likely at jury selection. They chose to make plea deals, pleading guilty to lesser charges, and were dropped from that trial. Lopez was sentenced in March 1991 (I think Briscoe was sentenced before him) to less time than any of the five received. It is useful to discuss them as it shows how fluid the case still was, and the effort by the prosecution to get some convictions.Parkwells (talk) 02:33, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Correction- prosecutors decided there was no evidence linking Briscoe to the female jogger case. He was charged only for assault and robbery of David Lewis, who was among the four men accosted in the park near the reservoir, and allowed to plead to assault only in a plea deal, receiving a much reduced sentence.Parkwells (talk) 15:26, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Ref. No. 100

This ref. has no actual citation as of now. XavierItzm (talk) 08:52, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing this - it was just a typo in the cite format; this was the Schanberg article. Parkwells (talk) 19:27, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Suggest breaking up comments by Trump

I have pulled his comments of 2016 while a presidential candidate (and the reaction to him) and put that with similar material that got coverage after announcement of the 2014 settlement. This puts it into the context of the continuing controversy at that time, in addition to noting the way he used the material in his later campaign.Parkwells (talk) 17:10, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

I think we need to think further about how best to present the material from 1989 - his ads were the most extreme and inflammatory of the bashing of the accused that was going on, and I think should be included in sections on what was happening in 1989. I don't think we should emphasize Trump by putting all his material in one section.Parkwells (talk) 18:17, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
But also included in this section is the lack of coverage of a brutal attack on a black woman in Brooklyn, which introduces another aspect of media bias, regardless of Trump's promise to her and whether he ever fulfilled it. Does this issue need to be expanded? Parkwells (talk) 17:10, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
Several people in the case have commented through the years, especially after the settlement, on what they thought the effect of Trump's ads were on public opinion and jurors. Perhaps the immediate content of his ads and 1989 comments should go into the 1989 section. The post-trial comments by Salaam and defense attorney Warren about the effect of Trump's ads could follow the content about the convictions of the five defendants.Parkwells (talk) 17:10, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
I've broken this up as proposed above and put remaining paragraph under header "Donald Trump visits another victim of violence", about the relative lack of coverage of the Brooklyn woman severely injured in an early May 1989 attack. I recommend that this whole paragraph be deleted, because there is no way to know if Trump satisfied his promise to pay her medical expenses. His record on donating to philanthropy was generally poor, as noted by the other cite at the time of his 2016 campaign. If editors decide to grapple with the issue of coverage of violence against minorities, I still think this Trump material should be deleted. I don't think it is sufficient to show Trump's concern for treatment of minorities. After another day, I'll delete it.Parkwells (talk) 19:54, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
I disagree that Trump's concern for treatment of minorities is at all the justification for the section. Trump's treatment of anyone is irrelevant to the article subject matter. The justification for the section is the WP:RS sources which tie both attacks. The book, for example[2], could not be more explicit: "Only when some news reports drew attention to that contrast did Donald Trump, who had taken a full-page ad to express his outrage and demand justice in the jogger assault, send a donation to Brooklyn". Nor could The New York Times, writing contemporaneously (1990): "Her case, whose shocking brutality was comparable to that of the Central Park jogger, which occurred only a few days earlier, prompted some harsh criticism of the news media, which did not devote comparable attention to it, in part, critics said, because the Central Park jogger was white and the Brooklyn victim was black."[3]. Nor do current media: "The case came to embody not only fears that accompanied the dramatic rise of violent crime in New York, but also its perceived racial dynamics. The case of a black woman, raped the same day in Brooklyn by two men who threw her from the roof of a four-storey building, received little media attention."[4] Now, with the WP:RS having solidly established there is a link between both cases, it behooves to explain to Wikipedia how the cases are similar or differ. For example, "Trump" appears 33 times in the article, i.e., a private citizen's opinion is, for whatever reasons, very much highlighted by Wikipedia. To not mention his participation in the adjoining case would appear to be in violation of WP:NPOV. XavierItzm (talk) 18:11, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Surely the key point here is the discrepant coverage when the victim was not white, upper-middle class. That is pretty universally covered, as are DT's bizarre ads. Whether DT did or did not help another victim (when pressed to do so), seems footnote-y at best. Pincrete (talk) 18:29, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
I wasn't suggesting that Trump was the reason to include material about the attack on the woman in Brooklyn in May 1989 and, in fact, believe that references to him should be deleted. I agree with Pincrete that the important point about including reference to the Brooklyn case is that it was an example of differing media (and general public) treatment and attention. I don't think that any reference to DT needs to be included to make that point. I agree with XavierItzm that DT's opinions are already over-represented in the article. Just because he said it and a quote was published at the time, does not mean we have to repeat it here. (How about if I make some deletions and you two can see what you think?) His ads express his viewpoint in 1989 well enough, as did his use of the case in 2016 in his campaign.Parkwells (talk) 21:24, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
  • An Oct 1990 article in the NY Times, about the plea deals and sentencing of 2 of the men in the Brooklyn case, noted media critics' contentions that violence against minority women was not being well covered by the media. The issue has been a continuing subject of much study since then. Another book on this topic is that of Natalie Byfield, which I included in "Further reading." Parkwells (talk) 21:24, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Curiously, both Sleeper's 1997 book and the 2016 Guardian article got the date wrong for the Brooklyn attack; it was more than "a few days later" than the attack in Central Park, which happened April 19; the Brooklyn attack occurred May 3, 1989. By the way, I found that the NY Times had reported on rapes citywide several days after the Central Park events, and added this to the content in that section about media coverage.Parkwells (talk) 19:37, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Garbled reference

para 3 is garbled. It asserts that 6 men were charged with the assault on meili. after listing the sentences received by those five, it closes with "The five other defendants" which would make a total of 10 defendants, those accused of Meili and 5 others accused of lesser crimes; the "other 5" are not introduced. "Other suspects" are referenced in para 2 but then don't reappear. "First of the two trials" has no preceding reference stating that there was more than one (more than two?) trials. I realize the page has gone through many edits but streamlining and clearly connected suspects and defendants is needed. thanks. Drollere (talk) 20:10, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Comments should be put after the last one on the Talk page, to make sure we don't miss them. (I'm moving yours down to the appropriate place in terms of date to conform with that.) Thanks for your comments - I worked trying to make these sections more comprehensible, and added the names of the five defendants charged in crimes against persons other than Meili. They were arrested and indicted at different times, which makes it difficult to keep track of them. I chose to present their indictments chronologically, as it gives a sense of what was happening with the case. Will check again.Parkwells (talk) 17:23, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Arrests of the five youths section

This source, which appears to be written by one of the detectives in the case, is the main source for the arrest of the five youths section. It contains numerous assertions as to what the suspects allegedly said prior to being formally interviewed, e.g. Additionally, before the raped jogger was found, one of the other boys the police had rounded up, sitting in the back of a police car, blurted that he "didn't do the murder" and named Antron McCray as the perpetrator. Kevin Richardson, who was sitting beside him, immediately agreed, saying "Antron did it".[39] Later, after Raymond Santana was interrogated about the rape and while he was being driven to another precinct, he on his own exclaimed: "I had nothing to do with the rape. All I did was feel her tits." This is in WP:VOICE, without even a single "allegedly".

I'm not expert on what elements of this case are/were disputed/discredited or retracted, but since so much of this case hangs on 'confessions' and whether these were properly obtained, it seems extraordinary to be using such an 'involved' source as a police detective - who presumably could not have been present at all these self-incriminating 'blurtings' in the back of police cars.

Temporarily, I have just added a [unreliable source?] tag, but the attention of someone with a fuller knowledge of which elements of this story are disputed/accepted (and a less partisan source?) would be appreciated. Pincrete (talk) 16:11, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

I think this is largely fixed now. Pincrete (talk) 11:51, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
I have essentially dropped that section, but moved the cite to the section "Settlement and exonerations disputed" for people who expressed disagreement in 2014 and later, and summarized Conlon as one who opposed the settlement and suggested guilt.Parkwells (talk) 19:02, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
well done, all who edited re the above, for the fixing, removal, moving, etc. these lads are civil rights figures now. we must be careful that the "i had nothing to do with the rape; all i did was feel her tits" quote never again appears in the article, no matter the reason. let them post it on their now-thankfully-invisible (demonitized and shadow-banned --like they should be) far-right blogs and on infowars comments and whatnot. we're a part of the scholarly/professional journalism community where content-selection is a valid part of the social struggle. we may shine the lads' reputations, but never throw mud. keep that quote and any other soot out of the article. Cramyourspam (talk) 17:02, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Police claims

User:Parkwells, the short answer to your question (Were these claims at the time to the press, or testimony at trial?) is that I don't know, AFAIK they have not been tested in court, but come from a 2014 article written by a former detective (referred to above). The claims were recently re-inserted by an IP in WPVOICE, another editor removed them, I rephrased them as 'claims', but am neutral as to whether they should stay. A noticeable feature of this case is the extent to which a 'media trial' occurred, and to some extent continues. I have instincts in two direction, including some of this 'hearsay', properly attributed, or eliminating it. Pincrete (talk) 18:41, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I came across Conlon's 2014 article and share your concerns as to including these claims based on his assertions at that date, which seem to be hanging out there. If the suspects' alleged statements in the car were important, it seems the prosecutor would have ensured they were introduced as testimony related to the statements and confessions. Absent that, it seems as if they can't really be attributed to any source; Conlon does not claim to have heard them himself. I'd be more comfortable if there were an RS that said something like, "Police testified at trial that the suspects volunteered information about the case that appeared to tie them to the acts."Parkwells (talk) 19:13, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm still concerned about using Conlon's material in the article at the time of arrests, interrogations, etc. He didn't make the statement until the time of the settlements (was probably prohibited from speaking before as a police official during an investigation). It seems too much like hearsay. If this were introduced as trial testimony and could be checked against a transcript, that might be different, but it does not appear to be. If it is going to be used at all, I think it should go with "continued disputes" that were renewed when the 2014 settlement was announced, such as Ann Coulter's comments I am moving there. It gives Conlon's comments too much weight to include his quotes at the time of arrests.Parkwells (talk) 16:10, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

WA Post adds more details to the other assaults

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/06/29/when-they-see-us-tells-important-story-central-park-five-heres-what-it-leaves-out/?utm_term=.cfe7f061d531

This includes more details about other youths arrested and indicted for assaults on others of the eight victims other than the female jogger; most are already included in this article. They each pleaded guilty and reduced relatively limited sentences.Parkwells (talk) 19:13, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

"the exonerated five"

Oprah, in her "Oprah Winfrey Presents: When they see us" wants us to use "the exonerated five". CP5 should be - everywhere where it's used - renamed in WP, right? At least this should be mentioned in this article Foerdi (talk) 21:04, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't think it has to be noted yet in this article, as the term has not achieved consensus although the five men were exonerated 17 years ago. Everything that is published does not have to be repeated here.Parkwells (talk) 21:24, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Oprah Winfrey's opinion is irrelevant and baseless. She can describe them any way she wants in her own media. In fact, the five were never exonerated. Exoneration would have required a retrial and acquittal, neither of which ever happened. The attackers weren't interested in a retrial; all they cared about was the money.
In a purely political move, their convictions and sentences were vacated. DA Robert Morgenthau was playing for his NYT obituary, and the author of the DA's brief for the vacating of the sentences, Nancy Ryan, hated Linda Fairstein, the since retired head of the Sex Crimes Unit, and wanted to give her the business by making her look bad. (Fairstein has been widely misrepresented as having been the "lead prosecutor" in the two Central Park Jogger--not "Central Park Five"--trials. She was not. Elizabeth Lederer was the lead prosecutor.) 2604:2000:1580:415A:1920:48F:A553:49A1 (talk) 12:56, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Issue: name all victims and persons convicted?

Five youths were indicted for assaults, robbery, etc. on the 7 or 8 other victims in the park. As I recall, they all pleaded guilty in order to take reduced sentences. Should both the victims and convicted youths be named, or only the former? So far the article names only James Loughlin in addition to Meili, as the Five were charged with assaulting him as well.Parkwells (talk) 02:33, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Persons who have pled guilty are customarily named on the WP. Ex-post facto issues, such as Presidential Pardons, or vacations of sentences, or analogous outcomes, are not used on WP to hide history, i.e., to keep from mentioning, where suitable, that which was contemporaneously mentioned by WP:RS. So if you have then-contemporaneous sources, or current sources, which deemed at the time (or now deem) any salient and encyclopaedic information worthy of mention, it should now be mentioned in the article, always respectfully, per WP:BLP, and always highlighting that the person was later legally exonerated, if that's the case. Please do note that legal exoneration is not at all the same as colloquial "exoneration," the way the word "exoneration" is currently used by common people, i.e., absolution. Cf. Merriam-Webster. Legal exoneration means one or more highly specific conviction(s) are reversed; it does not necessarily imply the person is innocent in the originating case. XavierItzm (talk) 17:29, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I thought those other defendants should be named, too. I have added the names of the other 8 victims to the body of the article, as well as the estimated time when they encountered the group of youths in the park. This material also became part of the chronology proposed by the prosecutors for when Meili was attacked. I am back to reading the Morgenthau Report, which provided details of other persons charged and who made plea deals in the attacks on the other 8 people. (The five defendants in the female jogger case were also charged in relation to the attack on jogger John Loughlin, which I added in the body.) In addition, the Morgenthau Report noted the weakness in the chronology and timeline of the prosecution. Parkwells (talk) 21:32, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Agree with Xavier. Therefore there was no exoneration here. The convictions were not reversed. They were vacated. Big difference. The statement in the introduction that the five were "exonerated" is completely false. 2604:2000:E010:1100:5D75:E8C2:E874:BEB9 (talk) 00:30, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

To add to article

To add to the article: the metal pipe, it seems, was actually brought into the park by either Salaam or Wise (and used to beat both the male teacher and female jogger in separate incidents). Salaam, at his trial, testified that he had gone into the park carrying a 12-inch metal pipe. (link) 76.189.141.37 (talk) 00:17, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

The convictions of both Salaam and Wise on all charges were vacated; they were wrongfully convicted in the attack of the female jogger. Reyes confessed to using a stick and rock against the female jogger. She was not hit with a metal pipe. Parkwells (talk) 19:22, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
Of course, she was hit with a metal pipe. Yusef Salaam admitted it, and Antron McCray also identified Salaam as having hit Meili "Twice, in the side and in the head" with the pipe, in McCray's confession. Among other things, Salaam gloated, "It was fun. It was something to do." 2604:2000:1580:415A:1920:48F:A553:49A1 (talk) 13:12, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
They withdrew their confessions well before the trial and maintained their innocence in the attack of the jogger. The DA's report in 2002 noted that the defendants' accounts had contradicted each other and the facts in the case, including the estimated time and place of the attack, which is why his investigatory team concluded these were false confessions. This Talk page is about the article, not to re-argue the case.Parkwells (talk) 14:57, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
You have been rearguing the case; I have the same right. You are simply trying to intimidate people out of telling the truth about these heinous crimes. When the rapists were convicted, their lawyers lamented that their self-incriminating statements were too much to overcome. They didn't just confess to the police, they even bragged at the time to third parties on the street. (Justice Galligan held a six-week-long Huntley Hearing, before admitting the rapists' confessions.) Meanwhile, Reyes' 2002 "confession" was completely lacking in credibility. And since the metal pipe was initially supplied by fellow Central Park attacker Jermaine Robinson, your denial that Salaam used it, and assertion that Reyes did all of the major damage lacks all credibility.
Morgenthau denied that the rapists' confessions were coerced. Morgenthau's "investigatory team" investigated nothing, and conspired to obstruct justice, by making it impossible for the NYPD to reinvestigate the case. Morgenthau wanted a nice NYT obituary, and Nancy Ryan wanted to destroy Linda Fairstein's life. Ryan got what she wanted, and Morgenthau will likely get what he wanted, as well, if he ever dies. He'll turn 100 on July 31. 2604:2000:1580:415A:1920:48F:A553:49A1 (talk) 08:23, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
Re: You are simply simply trying to intimidate people out of telling the truth about these heinous crimes. You know the truth do you? You were there? Or perhaps you've studied it in detail and could write a book about the matter! By all means do so, but don't try to use WP to argue your opinion, it may be libellous to do so when their convictions have been thrown out. The legal consensus is that the boys were wrongly convicted on the rape charge and that whatever evidence might once have been available on any other charges, is now irredeemably tainted. Some people don't agree with that verdict, we record their disagreement, we don't try to argue for them. Pincrete (talk) 09:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
“You were there?”
If that is a valid criticism, then there can be no juries, no prosecutors, no defense attorneys and no judges, since none of them was there, and having been there would disqualify them from participating.
You assert something as “legal consensus.” That is not a fact, but an opinion disguised as a fact. What is a fact is that they were never “exonerated.” It cannot possibly be “libellous” for me to state that, because the truth is an absolute defense against charges of defamation.
Like Parkwells, whom you obviously support, you are arguing a position, but doing so in a disingenuous manner. 2604:2000:1580:415A:1920:48F:A553:49A1 (talk) 08:49, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
It is the legal consensus that the initial trial has been declared null, and therefore the 5 are innocent in the same sense that you, I or the cat are innocent, ie we have an absolute entitlement to be treated as innocent. That is not an opinion, it is the verdict of the highest and most recent court to examine the evidence, supported by almost all sources. "The truth is an absolute defense against charges of defamation" yes of course it is, and if you are in a position to know better than the courts, what the truth is, by all means write your book/news article/blog and argue your case that you know better than the courts and risk the defamation suit - or simply mockery. But don't use WP because we don't do that. I won't be around to reply for a few weeks, but I'm sure pretty much any WP editor will argue much as I have. Pincrete (talk) 09:03, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Reversion

This reversion was not explained in a way that makes sense. The reason given was "(rv biased and likely COI editing -- Tim Clements should use the talk page to recommend changes to the article)"

For example.

1. The lede that was changed said the convictions were based "in part" on confessions that they said were coerced and false.

The editor has now changed it to say "solely" on those confessions.

But the text of the article below details other jury-considered elements that went into the convictions -- physical evidence introduced by the prosecutors. And it is supported by RSs.The reverting editor should not be making this change.

2. The lede mentions that "at trial the prosecution told the jury that there must have been an additional sixth assailant whom the police had not managed to apprehend."

The editor deleted that.

It is supported in the text below. It is certainly significant. Why would the reverting editor want to hide it?

3. The reverting editor changed "six" to 6. Why? No reason is given, other than the above accusation of COI editing. But wasn't it proper as written? And isn't the reverting editor making it improper?

4. The reverting editor changed the heading "The newly confessing assailant" to "The assailant." But it was more accurate as it read. Five people were accused of being assailants, convicted, convictions upheld on appeal, convictions vacated). When the sixth person confessed (the newly confessing assailant) years later, he was not tried (too late).

5. This entire paragraph was deleted. It is relevant. No good reason was given for its deletion.

"Tim Clements, who had been co-prosecutor for the DA’s Office for both trials, said later "We knew at the time that the two cases were tried that someone else was not apprehended. We told the jury that the DNA that had been analyzed matched someone else. When Reyes came forward it was a relief … It’s not surprising that he (perhaps) was with this group or joined it later."[5]"

6. This entire paragraph was also deleted. It is also relevant. No good reason was given for its deletion.

"Tim Clements, the co-prosecutor in both trials for the DA's Office, said he was stunned that the sentences were vacated, saying "The facts and the law supported the convictions. I was very disappointed that they vacated the convictions without even a hearing, without even an opportunity to question and examine Reyes... The facts are the facts. It’s unconscionable to me that anyone thinks they were not in the park that night and were not causing mayhem."[5]"

7. This was deleted, from the description of the Armstrong Report. No good reason was given for its deletion.

"The panel said his confession may have been motivated by prison threats (Wise was a member of the Bloods gang), or by a desire to transfer to a more desirable prison; after he confessed, he was re-admitted to a small, more desirable prison from which he had been thrown out.[6][7][8]"

8. This is one of the more dramatic deletions by the deleting editor. He deletes a significant part of the Armstrong Report. No good reason was given for its deletion.

"As to the five defendants, the report insisted that their confessions had not been coerced.[7][8] It noted that some of the defendants repeated their confessions in parole hearings subsequent to their convictions.[7] The report said as to inconsistencies in the defendants' statements that they were "fully explored" in pretrial hearings, and:"

9. The editor added "wrongfully" to this title, to make it read as follows: "Lawsuits by wrongfully convicted suspects". But it was correct as written, without wrongfully added. The court vacated their sentences -- not saying they were wrongfully convicted (that would be if the court had exonerated them, finding them innocent), but putting them in a position as though they had not been tried (they could be tried again at that point), which cleared their felony records (at that point) and took them off sex offender lists (at that point). That is a big difference. That is why adding the word "wrongfully" to the title - inconsistent with what the court actually did -- is a big mistake.

10. In the lawsuits section, the editor deleted "The city ... denied that the convictions resulted from any wrongful or unlawful acts."[9][10]

That's a pretty important fact. The editor deleted it. For no reason. He also deleted the reference.

11. The editor deleted "The former co-prosecutor from the Office of the Manhattan DA for both trials, Tim Clements, said of the documentary: "It was a piece of trash, and knowing who was behind it, and the fact that Sarah Burns had worked as paralegal for one of the lawyers in the lawsuit made me think they had set out to try to support the fictitious claims that had been floated," and said that the suspects made spontaneous statements to the police about events in the park that night before the police were aware that they had taken place.[5]"

That's wrong. It is relevant what the prosecutor at the trial said.

These are important deletions by this editor. They pervert the accuracy of the article. He says they are COI editing - but they are not. Frankly, his deletions of text that is encyclopedic and supported by proper sourcing has more of that flavor.

Also - this editor's "revealing" that the person suggesting these changes is "Tim Clements" ... is that even allowed?

If it is true. He has not shown it to be true.

I understand that this may be an emotional subject for some people. But let's allow the Wikipedia article to reflect facts -- let's not delete material that is supported by proper sources just because we do not like it. 2604:2000:E010:1100:E167:E99B:1D7:829B (talk) 21:24, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

A second editor just make further reverts, bringing the article to the format of that that the original above reverting editor had it in. These deletions have the same sort of problems.

12. The reverting editor gave as his reason "Per sources (TW))". That makes no sense. The sources supported what he deleted. And he deleted both the text. And the sources.

13. He changed the title of a section from "Accusations by Donald Trump" (that's not what the section is about) to "Donald Trump's call to bring back death penalty for murder" (that is what the section is about. Long, but accurate. He doesn't shorten it to something accurate - but to something not accurate.

14. The article said Trump called for the return of the death penalty "for murderers"....[11]

He deleted that. It is important. It is accurate.

His other deletions from quotes also hide what the death penalty was called for.

To not have WP add to misunderstanding on this point, we should restore what the article said.

15. Later deletions by this editor about the lawsuit are important and supported.

16. He deleted clarification, consistent with what the source states very clearly, that "Salaam said he and his family received more death threats after papers ran Trump's full-page ad.[12]"

Instead he deletes parts of that, warping what it says. The changes should be restored.

17. He describes one of the opinion staters as "acclaimed." That's not the way to handle the presentation of people with different views .. it is subjective, and has the effect of tilting who we should believe, and would lead to everyone being described as acclaimed or famous or notable etc. 2604:2000:E010:1100:E167:E99B:1D7:829B (talk) 21:40, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2COTh7rN9Rc
  2. ^ Sleeper, Jim (2002) [1997]. Liberal Racism: How Fixating on Race Subverts the American Dream. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-7425-2201-5.
  3. ^ https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/02/nyregion/2-men-get-6-to-18-years-for-rape-in-brooklyn.html?mtrref=undefined
  4. ^ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park-five-donald-trump-jogger-rape-case-new-york
  5. ^ a b c Graham Rayman (July 19, 2018). "Central Park Five prosecutor breaks silence, says it was mistake to vacate convictions and pay off accused teens," New York Daily News.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference thedailybeast.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference ReferenceA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference cnn.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ "Judge Officially OKs Central Park Five's $41 Million Settlement". Gothamist. Archived from the original on September 8, 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ [1]
  11. ^ "Member of 'Central Park 5' blasts Trump," CNNPolitics.
  12. ^ "Donald Trump and the Central Park Five: the racially charged rise of a demagogue," The Guardian.
Hello. Many of the changes you made were not based on the sources cited. For example, in the second paragraph, you want to add that the prosecution told the trial jury that there must have been an additional sixth assailant whom the police had not managed to apprehend. Unfortunately, the only cited source doesn't say that. On top of that, our guideline concerning the opening sections of articles states that they should summarize the contents of the article, not state facts that are not mentioned elsewhere in the article. Nowhere else in the article that I can see does it say that the jury was told at any of the trials that there was a sixth assailant. I'm not saying that it didn't happen, just that you need to cite reliable sources that say it happened.
Your editing on behalf of prosecutor Tim Clements is noble, but it violates our conflict of interest guideline.
Finally, your white-washing of Donald Trump's advertisements takes the cake. Everybody knew exactly who he was referring to, and who he was calling to be executed. Nobody was confused about who he meant when he wrote about "roving bands of wild criminals roam[ing] our neighborhoods" and "criminals of every age [who] beat and rape a helpless woman and then laugh at her family's anguish". "I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence." If you want to believe that all Trump was doing was calling for the death penalty for murderers, do so in private. In public, everybody with any sense knows he was contributing to an atmosphere in which no defendant could receive a fair trial. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 22:47, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Hi. First, you ignored almost all of my detailed comments about deletes you should not have made, above. They are important.
Second, the support for the statement about the additional assailant was based on a source cited. You deleted the text. And the source. It was a Daily News article. Quoting a co-prosecutor from the trials. It was in the article. The lead sentence summarized it.
The statement and article source that you deleted said "Tim Clements, who had been co-prosecutor for the DA’s Office for both trials, said later "We knew at the time that the two cases were tried that someone else was not apprehended. We told the jury that the DNA that had been analyzed matched someone else. When Reyes came forward it was a relief … It’s not surprising that he (perhaps) was with this group or joined it later."<ref name=autogenerated2> Graham Rayman (July 19, 2018). [https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-news-tim-clements-central-park-five-20180713-story.html "Central Park Five prosecutor breaks silence, says it was mistake to vacate convictions and pay off accused teens,"] ''New York Daily News''.</ref>
Explain what you mean by about conflict of interest editing here. That is totally unclear. It really makes no sense. Say what you mean. Or put back all the Daily News reporting on what the co-prosecutor said. You deleting it without good reason is really not the right thing to do. And you have not given a reason we can understand.
As to Trump - there is no whitewashing at all. Read carefully. You are writing about what you say "everybody knew" what he meant. My edits were supported by reliable sources and by the ad itself and only reflect what he said. You should not be deleting what he said. That is bad. If you have a reliable source about on top of that about what he meant, or think more of the advertisement should be quoted, that is great, then add it too. But you deleting what he said is not ok. Totally no ok. You should not try to warp an article, that states what he said, to delete what he said. Certainly there is enough to make your point without you doing that. It's not right. 2604:2000:E010:1100:E167:E99B:1D7:829B (talk) 23:33, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
A couple of points about Trump's ad. The Central Park 5 case may have inspired him to take out the ad, he never mentions them, and the ad itself seems to be a more general call for a tougher stance against crime. To say this was an ad specifically against the 5 or that everyone knew he was talking about them is a personal assessment, not a neutral fact supported by evidence. Secondly, the sources claiming Trump's ad played a role in the convictions do not provide any evidence that proves or even suggests it did play a role in the conviction. There have been no studies of the ads and their alleged impact on the convictions. Rather, these are empty assertions made almost 30 years later that seem based merely on anti-Trump biases by those making them. This is not to defend Trump or his ad, but we should not blame someone or accept allegations about someone as true simply because we do not agree with or like him/her. It also limits, if not ignores, the role of systemic/cultural racism in the convictions. If Trump was not such a hated president among liberals, these issues would likely be blamed for the convictions, as Joan Didion did at the time. If the ad is to be blamed, should not the papers that published it also be blamed? They were not forced to run the ad, and as such aided and abetted whatever, if any, influence it had. If the ad was a racist dog whistle, then the papers themselves were central in promoting racism. As it is, Trump becomes the focus of the outrage and blame while the role of others and of deeper, systemic issues are ignored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:7226:A00:68EE:5E67:C175:5EFB (talk) 22:46, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Kevin Richardson Scratch On Left Eye and Confessions

I notice that there isn't any mention here of the scratch on Kevin Richardson's left eye which is what initially lead to the suspicion of his involvement in the rape and, in turn, lead to him implicating the other four. Here's a source that corroborates this:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/case-settled-1989-central-park-jogger-believes-person/story?id=63077131

Also, on a related note, shouldn't it be noted that in all five of the interviews, none of them actually confessed to taking part in the rape, they only claimed to be present at the scene while the others supposedly raped her? Just to be clear I'm not taking any sides here, but I do think these things are kind of important to mention to give the full context of how these events unfolded. –Nahald (talk) 08:53, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

errors in citations; confusion between and repetition in sections

@Pincrete:

You quoted from the Village Voice article in your edit — but in reference to earlier section that cited the Didion article. Didion herself wrote: "jurors in the second trial would eventually mention physical evidence as having been crucial in their bringing guilty verdicts". This is something that was widely reported on.

The portion that cites the Village article has nothing to do with the "Trial" – read the article – and its use pretrial is already covered earlier in the article.

Elle Kpyros (talk) 22:26, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Update:

Yes, the edit you've made clarifies it. But I'm still going to remove the Didion quote, as well as the sentence before it (which you've now added to the "Second Trial" section—-because it seems pretty clear to me that the "Evidence presented in court" section refers to pretrial hearings (as it's followed by the "Trial" sections. Maybe it would help to rename the first of these sections "Pretrial evidence" or something, to distinguish it from the trials? I'll try that for now, and feel free to edit.

Thanks!

Elle Kpyros (talk) 22:38, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

8 or 9 victims

We are told repeatedly, on the word of the New York Times, that three of the victims were black or Latino. It is not said how many were Latino. About two seem to have been Latino. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C87:4F00:A88C:8A3D:5D36:691E (talk) 10:07, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Were the ancillary assault charges ever addressed

We are covering the rape aspects of the trials, of that night and of the vacating of the sentences, but do we know anything about the five defendants and the other assaults that night? Are those convictions still on the books? Have the five defendants ever addressed those charges? --Bertrc (talk) 21:49, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Describing the Jogger as a "white woman" as opposed to just "a woman"

An editor recently took issue with the lead describing the case as a criminal case over the aggravated assault and rape of a white woman..., saying that the inclusion of white in that sentence was "race-baiting language". However, given the number of reliable sources which scrutinize the racial dynamics of this case, I believe it is relevant and important to note the jogger's race here.

Part of the case's legacy in modern sources in how sensationalist media used it to shape a "sentimental narrative"[6] of white womanhood "under assault"[7] by a "marauding wolfpack"[8] of "bestial black men"[9]. In the terms of Missing white woman syndrome, the jogger was absolutely a Missing White Woman.

The jogger's race was definitely at least somewhat important in shaping discussion of the case, and reliable sources reflect that. Describing her race plainly does not make any controversial judgements about how relevant that was, nor does it suggest that this interpretation of those discussions is good, only that it is prominent. Therefore, it seems neutral. Omitting her race wrongly implies that it is absolutely not even the slightest bit relevant, which is not neutral. RoxySaunders (talk) 19:13, 5 January 2021 (UTC)


Sixth Man, Steven Lopez

Recent reports are covering a sixth man who was exonerated just recently after he also served time from false convictions regarding the same charges, a man named Steven Lopez. Who's open to adding the information? I ask here because I don't have time at the moment, at the very least to do so all on my own, since I'm busy with some other projects. If you need to reach me directly, if you could place my handle in her reply however it sends me notice or leave a message on my wall, please. Thanks in advance for considering the crucial information here. ContributingHelperOnTheSide (talk) 19:59, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

The fact of Lopez's vacated conviction has been added to the article—thanks!--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 16:05, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Deletion of Melli subsection

I deleted the subsection that was, effectively, a separate article on the victim. I saw that this edit was reverted, but I disagree with the justification for the change and simultaneously think WP guidelines counsel against the addition, so I thought I'd elaborate here.

The reverting user said, "This is pretty standard for Wikipedia articles on crimes; see, e.g., 2014 Isla Vista killings, to which Eliot Rodger redirects." But I think the comparison is inapt.

First, in terms of notability, victims and perpetrators are not equivalents. Rodger's mindset is particularly notable to the Isla Vista killings article; notice that the responses section is entirely devoted to his ideology and mental health—given the relation of Rodger to the subject, his background is far more relevant to that article. That's not the case here; there's obviously a much more tenuous connection (in terms of relevance) between Melli's background and this attack.

Further, and a bit more critically, WP:SUMMARY notes that articles should be written in summary style and that the length of an article should be considered when deciding the amount of information to include. Based on my rough estimate (based on word count)—with the section on Elliot Rodger, the Isla Vista killings article is less than half the length of this article without the subsection on Melli (who, it should be noted, is not at all excluded from the article even without the embedded mini article).

That final note actually, for me, adds to the reasons not have a mini article on Melli in this article—the information that is relevant about her—her recovery, thoughts on the exonerations, and subsequent career, are all already included in the article; the mini article largely duplicated this information and included lots of non-relevant information.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 14:58, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Your edit summary stating that the removal of the Meili section is required by the guideline WP:SUMMARY, and expressing surprise that Meili's name was bolded therein despite this convention being commonplace in similar articles, seemed questionable insofar as the content has been in our article for more than ten years with hundreds of intervening edits by more experienced contributors than yourself. While I appreciate your further explanation, and don't intend to pursue this with additional reverts for the time being, it seems to me that the reliable secondary sources, rather than Wikipedia editors, should ultimately determine how much of the eponymous "Central Park Jogger"'s background is relevant to coverage of the case. Regards,TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 16:59, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
Looking back, I was absolutely wrong to suggest that a guideline was mandatory—I apologize for that error! I take your point on the reliable sources—no doubt there are reliable sources that provide—just using the same example—where Melli went to college and what her professors said about her. Still, I'm not sure I agree it follows that discussion by a reliable source automatically yields relevance. In theory, it'd be possible to do mini-article sections on Melli, each member of the Central Park Five, and (probably) Reyes! But I'm hopeful we both agree that wouldn't be appropriate.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 17:05, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

POV tag

I added the POV tag to the section on reaction to the civil-suit settlements, since only negative reactions are covered. (I also have this concern about what's currently the lede in the Aftermath section, since, save for a quote from the DA, only negative perspectives are documented—surely we should quotes from some people who celebrated the vacatur?).--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 16:19, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

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