Before there were the immigrant “monsters” that Donald Trump hates, there were the Central Park Five.
Most people know the case: five black boys accused of brutally raping a woman in New York City in the spring of 1989, leaving her brain-damaged, naked and gagged.
Within days, police had obtained confessions from the teenagers, ages 14 to 16, using methods that are now considered controversial at best. Those forced confessions led to the convictions of Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam and Korey Wise, and wrongful imprisonment for a crime they had no part in.
Years later, in 2002, thanks to the confession of the real rapist and the advances in DNA testing, the boys were exonerated and became known as the Exonerated Five. But that has never been enough for Trump.
Nearly two weeks after the attack, Trump took out a full-page ad in the New York Times and three other newspapers, costing tens of thousands of dollars, calling for the children to be killed.
“BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY! BRING BACK OUR POLICE!” read the headline.
“How can our great society tolerate its citizens being continually brutalized by crazed misfits?” he continued. “Criminals must be told that their CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SECURITY BEGINS.”
That's more of a strange capitalization of yours, not mine.
But doesn't that sound familiar? That phrase could have been uttered at one of his last presidential acts, rather than in a speech delivered 35 years ago.
Trump has always believed that justice is a white person's job, or at least a rich person's job. Even though science and evidence proved beyond a doubt that the childhood of these five children was brutalized by police misconduct, Trump refused to back down. Even after they were awarded $41 million in 2014 for the police's botched investigation of the case, Trump refused to back down.
When the five won their civil suit, Trump tweeted: “I bet the Central Park 5 lawyers are laughing at the stupidity of New York when there was such a strong case against their ‘clients.’”
In 2016, Trump stepped up his efforts. “They admitted they were guilty,” he said in a statement to CNN in October of that year.
“The police who conducted the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that this case was resolved with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same.”
And, in a line that echoed eerily years later in his comments about the Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Trump said of believing in the innocence of the Exonerated Five: “There are people on both sides of that… So we’ll leave it at that.”
No, we won't leave it at that. On Thursday, Salaam, Wise, Santana and Richardson spoke at the Democratic National Convention.
“45 wanted us dead,” said Salaam, now a New York City councilman, referring to Trump.
“He dismisses scientific evidence rather than admit he was wrong,” Salaam continued. “He has never changed and never will.”
It was a powerful moment that deserved applause, but one that should also be met with reflection.
Trump, Salaam said, “believes that hate is the driving force of America.”
He thought about it in 1989 with black children, and he thinks about it now in 2024 with immigrants.
The theme on Thursday night, when Kamala Harris accepts her nomination, is “a just future.”
The Central Park Five were a clear statement that Trump has always advocated revenge over justice, in the past and in our future.
