False Confessions In The Film The Central Park Five (2012)

The film, The Central Park Five (Burns, 2012) talks about a true story of a group of innocent teens who gave false confessions that led to getting falsely convicted for the assault, rape, and sodomy of a young female jogger named Trisha Meili. On April 19th, 1989 in Central Park around 9:20pm, Trisha had been attacked. Her body was found barely alive at 1:30am the next morning; suffered from hypothermia, brain damage, and deep stab wounds. The police took this as the perfect opportunity to create a narrative involving pinpointing the group of young boys who had created a garden of terror around the same time. The police interrogated the scared boys for hours without representation or their parents by their side. Creating a cycle of individual confrontation, then denial by the suspects and then the police yelling saying, “you are a liar.” Then the cops would repeat this cycle till they would break down the suspect, have them overwhelmed, and then commit to a crime that they did not do. The police had the boys playing against each other and gave them the idea that if they cooperated, they would be able to go …show more content…
The children, at first, were not even given their civil rights. The cops just wanted a story that would allow them to wrap the case up in a simple easy bowtie, other suspects were not even considered. I found it shocking that the case was not thrown out in court because there was no physical or eyewitness evidence, besides the story the boys were fed like a script. I believe there was a better way to handle this case, they should have slowed down and not rushed to conclusions. Allowed a family member in the interrogation room, because, at 14 or 15, you do not know what you are doing as a minor and just want to go home. The boys were not interrogated fairly, instead, they were treated like animals; deprived of food, water and