Gate honors the Central Park Five
New York City opened a gate to honor the five boys, now men, known as the Central Park Five who spent decades in prison, having been pressured by police to confess to a crime they didn’t commit.
Called the Gate of Exonerated, the gate is the first and only gate added to Central Park’s official entrance since the 19th century. The gate is located on 110th Street between Malcolm X Boulevard and Fifth Avenue.
The boys, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, and Yusef Salaam were mostly minors and they were arrested. The Central Park five were Black and Hispanic.
They were charged men charged with raping Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old woman who was jogging in Central Park.
Some members of the Central Five spent up to 15 years in jail for the crime. Later another man confessed.
In January 2002, Matias Reyes beat and raped a Central Park jogger.
Investigators found that Reyes’ semen was an exact DNA match for the traces of semen found on the jogger’s sock. They also found that the blond hairs used as physical evidence in the 1990 trial did not in fact belong to the victim.
The Central Park Five received a financial settlement, but Donald Trump placed full-page ads in New York newspapers, proclaiming the five were guilty and should be executed.