>> I want us to remember
what happened that day
and be horrified by ourselves.
New York in the late 1980s was
a completely schizophrenic,
divided city.
>> New York is now the
capital of racial violence.
>> If I had more bullets,
I would have shot them
all again and again.
>> Criminality, gang
wars, drug lords.
We were supposed to be afraid.
It would have been
irrational not to be afraid.
>> Last night a woman
jogger was found unconscious
and partially clothed
in Central Park.
She was beaten and
sexually assaulted.
>> A woman jogging
in Central Park.
Central Park was holy.
It was the crime of the century.
[ Music ]
>> Five youths were
arrested at 96th Street,
all between 14 and
15 years of age.
>> They got them.
>> You can only imagine
the pressure
to have this crime
solved and solved quickly.
>> First we was all together,
then they started to put us
in different rooms separately.
>> "What did you do?
Who were you with?
Who did you come with?"
The tone was very scary.
I felt like they might
take us to the back
of the precinct and kill us.
>> Never go home until
you give up the story.
>> I told my son "Go to
the park" that night.
I feel guilty.
>> I'm telling the guy, "I don't
know what you're talking about."
They're getting a little angry.
>> And they like, "You know
you did it, didn't you?"
>> He had been interrogated
for over 24 hours.
That amounts to pressure.
>> These young men were guilty.
It was almost unquestioned.
>> The police soon
told the story.
They created the story.
>> They seized on the
fears of the people.
"Wilding," the bestial
characterization
of the black man.
>> There's no DNA match
whatsoever to any of these boys.
>> I was going nuts.
>> No blood on the kids,
nobody could identify them,
but if they confess, they
confess, and that was that.
>> A lot of people didn't do
their jobs: Reporters, police,
prosecutors, defense lawyers.
>> This was institutional
[indiscernible].
>> We falsely convicted them and
we walked away from our crime.
>> This is the ultimate siren
that says none of us is safe.
