Film Analysis: "When They See Us"

1 Megan Milo AfrAm 300 Lisbeth Gant-Britton 29 November 2020 Film Analysis: ​When They See Us When They See Us​, a limited series created for Netflix, premiered on May 31, 2019, with four extended episodes. This series, co-written, directed, and created by a Black female filmmaker, Ava DuVernay, sheds light on the gruesome and tragic stories of the Central Park Five. The Central Park Five are five Black and Latino boys who were wrongfully convicted of raping a female jogger in 1989 and therefore served time in prison for crimes they did not commit. Though this series received 11 Emmy nominations, DuVernay and Netflix were later both sued by the prosecutor of the case, Linda Fairstein, and the interrogation training company, John E. Reid & Associates for defamation. What we see in this short series only further solidifies the notion that we need prison and law enforcement reform, as we have talked about in our classes. The concept of reform seems general and large, but that’s simply because it’s a problem that has gotten so out of hand, that it truly is everywhere. Each of the five boys involved in the Central Park Five case were sentenced to serve time in prison. All of them were 14-16 years old at the time of the event in 1989, and one of them, Korey Wise, was tried as an adult at 16. Four of the boys who were tried as juveniles served approximately 6 years in juvenile detention centers, and Korey Wise served almost 14 years in an adult prison. A large portion of losing these cases was due to the boys all providing written and videotaped confessions, except one boy named Yusef Salaam, to being accomplices to the rape. 2 However, their parents/guardians were not present for most of the interrogations of these boys, which is illegal, except if you are 16, which Korey Wise was, giving him the brunt of the violent coercion. In all of their recounts, the boys mislocated the incident, got details wrong, and their stories did not always line up with each other. On top of that, there were zero DNA matches to any of the boys for the 2 samples found on the assaulted jogger, yet the police ruled the findings inconclusive. Another piece of evidence used against a boy named Kevin Richardson was that they found matching hair of the victim in Richardsons underpants, however, years later, the DNA was tested again, and they found that the DNA did not actually match. “In the second trial, juror Ivette Naftal picked up Kevin Richardson’s underpants and showed the other jurors what she said were grass and mud stains – therefore, Richardson must have pulled his pants down and raped the jogger. Incredibly, the prosecutors had never tested the stains, so their origin remains a mystery” (Smith). This is a chilling example of how careless and un-thorough these courts were being with these children. Why wouldn’t they want to double-check and be sure of every single thing they were presenting; it’s as if each accusation is based on opinion. According to an article in New York Magazine, confessional “videotaping began on April 21, after most of the suspects had been awake for nearly two days”. Additionally every time the boys were asked to recount how their interrogations went, they all broke down. It’s clear that these boys were coerced and forced to say certain things by means of very unpleasant convincing. According to the same New York Magazine article, “Detective Tom McKenna...21-year veteran[,] falsely told Yusef Salaam that fingerprints had been found on the jogger’s clothes”. Salaam was apparently told by the detective that if his fingerprints matched the ones on the jogger, he would be automatically convicted. Not knowing what these officers were capable of, he confessed to being there, but not responsible for the rape. This presents as a fight or flight 3 reaction; he can’t leave, these officers are clearly not trustworthy or on his side, so he gave them a bit of what they want so that he could avoid maximum punishment… This isn’t new. This is what the interrogation training center, John E. Reid & Associates, who sued filmmaker Ava DuVernay, was showing officers to use in interrogations. This Reid technique is highly criticized for producing false confessions, especially in juveniles…(Drizin). Sound familiar? Later, Salaam said, "I would hear them beating up Korey Wise in the next room", and "they would come and look at me and say: 'You realize you're next.' The fear made me feel really like I was not going to be able to make it out" (The Guardian). The limited series, ​When They See Us,​ portrayed a heartbreaking recount of these interrogations, with violent officers making these poor children cry, and exhaust themselves with stress, to the point where they finally admit to crimes we know they didn’t do. It also shows us the officers actually walking the boys through what to say on their video confessions; correcting them on specific details, reiterating facts the boys never had any idea about until they were told to them. This is not how an officer of the law should behave in general, but especially with minors. These are people who are trying to arrest kids for assaulting someone, yet here they are assaulting these kids. How does that add up to justice? According to the Innocence Project, a foundation dedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted, says “more than 360 wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence involved some form of a false confession.” Many of these tactics discovered by and displayed on the website of the Innocence Project were used in the case of the Central Park Five; “Real or perceived intimidation of the suspect by law enforcement: ● Use of force by law enforcement during the interrogation, or perceived threat of force ● Compromised reasoning ability of the suspect, due to exhaustion, stress, hunger, substance use, and, in some cases, mental limitations, or limited education. Young people 4 who do not understand their rights and are taught to please authority figures are particularly vulnerable. ● Devious interrogation techniques, such as untrue statements about the presence of incriminating evidence ● Fear, on the part of the suspect, that failure to confess will yield a harsher punishment” For starters, my thought is that interrogations need to be restructured. I believe the entirety of the interrogations should be recorded, emphasizing that among minors, regardless if they’re being tried as adults, to prevent abuse from law officers. Next, without substantial evidence, as defined to be “such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion,” there should be an acquittal (“93. Social Security Act Review Procedures.”). For example, in this Central Park Five case, there was DNA found at the scene, and none of the boys matched this DNA. How are they still guilty if there are actual findings of people at the scene, and the accused don’t match up? With the exception of Kevin Richardson, who at the time was believed to have positively identified matching hair from the victim in his underwear, the rest of them were taken advantage of. Next, this is an issue of racial profiling. A white woman in the late 1980’s was raped and left for dead on the same night that a bunch of young boys of color were out-and-about in the general vicinity. In ​The New Jim Crow​ by Michelle Alexander, she realizes that “mass incarceration in the United States ha[s], in fact, emerged as a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.” Catching these boys is an easy way out. With all of the stereotypes of young Black men being seen as nothing but trouble, and only enforced by the disproportionate amount of Black men already in prison, these boys were used as a scapegoat. These officers spent 2 days 5 interrogating boys who said they didn’t do this. The officers clearly had the goal of getting them to say something else, without caring to listen to what the boys were actually saying, because they already saw them as criminals, based on snap-assumptions. Donald Trump, our now former President, and then famous celebrity took out a “signed full-page newspaper advertisements implicitly calling for the boys to die” (The Guardian). While freedom of speech is celebrated in this country, isn’t that line supposed to be drawn when that free speech puts other people in harm’s way? A country that allows a worshipped man of media to manipulate the public’s perceiving of a court case that could lead to the death penalty is one that should be feared. Donald Trump actually advertised that these teenage boys be put to death, without having any involvement in this case, and people listened. Meanwhile, Trump has had ​26 of his own sexual assault court cases… his ad now can only be received as racial bias and hate speech, because it was clearly not for the sake of the poor assaulted woman, as it’s evident that Trump isn’t bothered by that sort of thing. This series helped me reflect on the injustice that goes on behind closed doors. It wasted 13 years of Korey Wise’s life before he was finally acquitted. He was abused and went through hell during his time in prison, as did the rest of the boys. Watching the end of the series, and seeing all the boys as men finally walking free, completely exonerated brought tears to my eyes. Many people’s, before and after The Central Park Five, lives have been wasted due to incomplete investigation and the quick assumption of easily believing a Black person is responsible for certain crimes. I hope this series forces the system to exonerate more people and re-open more near-inconclusive cases such as these ones. I hope people get their lives back. 6 Works Cited Drizin, Steven A. & Richard A. Leo, ​The Problem of False Confessions in the Post-DNA World​, 82 N.C. L. Rev. 891 (2004). Laughland, Oliver. “Donald Trump and the Central Park Five: the Racially Charged Rise of a Demagogue.” ​The Guardian​, Guardian News and Media, 17 Feb. 2016, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park-five-donald-trump-jogger-rape-c ase-new-york. Smith, Chris. “Central Park Revisited - Nymag.” ​New York Magazine​, New York Magazine, 21 Oct. 2002, nymag.com/nymetro/news/crimelaw/features/n_7836/index.html. Kathleen Michon, Attorney. “When Juveniles Are Tried in Adult Criminal Court.” Www.nolo.com​, Nolo, 11 Apr. 2016, www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/juveniles-youth-adult-criminal-court-32226.html. “False Confessions & Recording Of Custodial Interrogations.” ​Innocence Project​, 6 Mar. 2020, innocenceproject.org/false-confessions-recording-interrogations/. “When They See Us.” ​IMDb​, IMDb.com, 31 May 2019, www.imdb.com/title/tt7137906/. “93. Social Security Act Review Procedures.” ​The United States Department of Justice​, 7 Dec. 2018, 7 www.justice.gov/archives/usam/civil-resource-manual-93-social-security-act-review-proce dures. Alexander, Michelle. ​The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.​ Revised edition. New York: New Press, 2012. Print.