Jogger case: Cop version rings true (Central Park Jogger)

New York Daily News ^ | 2/4/3 | ER Shipp

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Jogger case: Cop version rings true

Short shrift has been given to the Police Department version of what happened in April 1989 when black and Latino kids went on a rampage in Central Park - the most notorious victim being the Central Park Jogger. The report may get even less attention, now that the nation is focused on grieving for the Columbia astronauts, God bless them. But there are other matters for us to consider.

Did the cops screw up by charging five minority kids with the rape? I am not convinced of the cops' culpability - or the Central Park Five's innocence. It pains me that too many people are absolutely sure the police were the bad guys and the kids were just kids.

We may never know the full truth, but we should not close our eyes to the facts that the NYPD has given us in its report.

Yes, Matias Reyes came forward last year to say he was the sole rapist and that none of the five guys who did time for it - Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise - had anything to do with it. But Reyes doesn't convince me or many others, even though it's not politically correct to say so.

The Manhattan district attorney's office based its decision to recommend exonerating the five on Reyes' word. But the three-member panel appointed by Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly concluded there was "evidence to suggest that he came forward in response to threats, delivered through the underground prison communications system, and/or that he acted in order to get a desired change in prison assignment."

Practically from the time they were in police custody, some of the Central Park Five told the cops that they knew "who did the murder," so convinced were they that the jogger was dead. They named McCray as the supposed killer.

Santana, Wise and Richardson talked in detail about what only those present could have known, from taking the jogger's Walkman from a fanny pack to her loss of blood. From the police report: "When asked why he [Wise] was so surprised by the amount of blood, he answered, 'I knew she was bleeding, but I didn't know how bad she was. It was really dark.'"

Even in 1994, at a parole hearing, Santana said, according to the report, that he and seven or eight friends "planned to go to the park that night to rob and assault people. ... They were prepared to attack whoever they encountered."

Again from the report: "Wise and Salaam were sought for questioning because a number of the others who had been detained had implicated Salaam and a youth named 'Kharey.'"

Let's not make excuses for people who do bad things. They may be just stupid, not irrevocably evil, and deserving of a second chance. But we've got to let them know that and not turn them into heroes. Particularly now, we should be explicit in defining who's a hero and who's not.

Originally published on February 4, 2003

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First time I EVER agreed with anything this crackpot had to say. She basically made me stop reading that paper single-handedly.

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Liberal black editor sides with the cops against black perps ping...

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Even Shipp's stomach turns at the thought of these five pieces of human filth getting rich suing the city.