One of the saddest and most infamous chapters in New York City history is that of the "Central Park Five", in which one Hispanic and four black teenagers were falsely charged and convicted of a horrific crime. The story involved the brutal rape and beating of a young white woman in Central Park in 1989. The police, in their haste to solve this crime, arrested five teenagers. None of these teenagers up to this time had any kind of police record.
The police coerced false confessions from these young men, who were then charged and convicted, and served anywhere from 7 to 13 years in prison for a crime in which none of them were involved. Their lives were destroyed in many ways, and although 25 years later the City awarded them $40 million for this miscarriage of justice, their lives can never be made fully right.
At the time of their trials, New Yorkers viewed these teenagers as the personification of evil, which was fueled by the press coverage they received. From a
June 2011 article concerning the press coverage of this case:
Re-reading the coverage, it’s easy to see that frenzy and fear quickly began to strain editorial reason. The boys, all between 14 and 17 years old, were described by reporters and columnists alike as “bloodthirsty,” “animals,” “savages” and “human mutations.”
On April 23, Post columnist Pete Hamill wrote that the boys in custody had come “from a world of crack, welfare, guns, knives, indifference and ignorance…a land with no fathers…to smash, hurt, rob, stomp, rape. The enemies were rich. The enemies were white.”
The media has often been guilty of stirring up hatred against "bad guys". One example is the very sad story of Richard Jewell, who was a police officer in Atlanta during the 1986 Olympics. There was a bombing at that time, and Jewell, who was 100% innocent, was "convicted" of this crime by the press even though he was never officially charged. In later years he successfully sued several different press organizations for libel. However, the damage done to him had taken its toll and he died at the age of 44 in 2007.
Of course, the worst injustice in the history of mankind is that of the conviction and execution of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ's only real "crime" was loving mankind far more than our limited minds can ever comprehend. Mob mentality greatly contributed to the false conviction and crucifixion of this most innocent of all men.
