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Yusef Salaam, who was one of the “Central Park Five” and spent seven years in prison before his exoneration, is the apparent winner of the Democratic primary for a seat on the New York City Council. Salaam got about 50 percent of the vote in a crowded field for the seat from Harlem, beating out two state Assembly members, Inez Dickens, who received 25 percent, and Al Taylor, who finished with about 15 percent. This being New York City, the primary win means he’ll likely win the general election and take the seat currently held by Councilmember Kristin Richardson Jordan, who ran but dropped out before the election, although her name remained on the ballot. The race won’t be over until all ballots are counted, and if Salaam’s total falls below 50 percent, then ranked-choice voting will determine the winner. Given his strong first-round tally, Salaam would have a big advantage in subsequent rounds.
In 1989, Salaam and four other Black teenagers were coerced into false confessions and convicted of the brutal rape and beating of a 29-year-old white female jogger in Central Park. The case generated an insane amount of media panic about Black teenagers “wilding” because while the crime against the jogger truly was horrifying, it also gave tabloid media an excuse to paint all young Black men as inherently prone to violence and just barely human. Good Christ it was an ugly, racist media frenzy.
During the media freakout, Donald Trump took out a full-page ad in multiple New York papers calling for the teens to be executed, although New York had no death penalty and you can’t pass laws to execute people after a crime has been committed. The man was never all that big on details.
In 2002, convicted serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to the rape and beating, saying he had acted alone, and once it was determined that only Reyes was a match to DNA samples taken from the victim, the convictions of the Five were vacated. When he ran for president in 2016, Trump told a CNN reporter he still thought the men were guilty, despite the exonerations, and despite the complete lack of DNA evidence, because it was a horrible crime and after all they confessed, didn’t they?
Previously:
Donald Trump Still Needs To See Copy Of Central Park Five’s Long-Form DNA
Giuliani On Actually Innocent ‘Central Park Five’: Somebody Was Doing The Raping!
Trump’s good pal Rudy Giuliani backed Trump up on that, because even if they didn’t assault the Central Park victim, they were probably criminals anyway.
Salaam went on to be a speaker, writer, and criminal justice reform advocate, and in his probably-victory speech last night, said,
What has happened in this campaign has restored my faith in knowing that I was born for this. Every single thing that happens to you happens for you. Having to be kidnapped from my home — as a 15-year-old child — to be lodged in the belly of the beast, I was gifted to turn that experience into the womb of America. I was gifted because I was able to see it for what it really was: a system that was trying to make me believe that I was my ancestors’ wildest nightmare, but I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams.
While running for the City Council seat, he also published his own full-page ad — on the day Trump was arraigned on state felony charges in New York. The ad excoriated Trump for his constant calls for violence, from his 2016 campaign to January 6 to his threats against prosecutor Alvin Bragg: “You were wrong then, and you are wrong now.”
Salaam said he put his faith in the justice system “to seek out the truth” in Trump’s case, adding,
I hope that you exercise your civil liberties to the fullest, and that you get what the Exonerated 5 did not get — a presumption of innocence, and a fair trial.
Best of luck to Yusef Salaam in his new job. He seems like a good fit.
[Gothamist / NBC News / MSNBC / Dublin City University Journal]
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