Thereโs not much one can say when the man who called for your death as a teenager is indicted. But upon hearing the news of former President Donald Trumpโs indictment, Dr. Yusef Salaam had this to say; โKarma.โ
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For those who donโt know, Salaam is one of the Central Park Five (now the Exonerated 5), a group of Black and Latino teenage boys who were wrongfully convicted of a rape in Central Park in 1989. The boys were later exonerated after the actual rapist, Matias Reyes, came forward and DNA evidence proving he was guilty. The case was dramatized in Ava Duvernayโs film, When They See Us, which depicted the various ways law enforcement coerced false statements from the boys and pushed the case forward with little to no concrete evidence.
Perhaps what is most disturbing about the events surrounding the Central Park Five is the adults, like Trump, who called for the teenagers to face the death penalty. Before any conviction, Trump took out full-page advertisements in four New York City newspapers calling for the five teens to be executed.
โBRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!โ wrote Trumpโs advertisement.
Even after the now-grown men were exonerated, Trump refused to apologize for his rush to judgment, which could have ended in these boysโ deaths. โYou have people on both sides of that,โ said Trump in 2019, โThey admitted their guilt.โ
In his full statement about Trumpโs indictment, Salaam, who is now running for New York City Council, called out the former real estate developer. โTrump has never apologized for taking out a full page ad calling for the death penalty for the Central Park 5,โ wrote the statement from his campaign. โNew York City Council candidate and Exonerated 5 member Yusef Salaam issued the following statement following the indictment of Donald Trump by the Manhattan District Attorney: โKarmaโ
Itโs still too soon to know if the charges against Trump will stick, but if anyone gets to call Trump out before heโs convicted, it should probably be Salaam.
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