PBS legend Ken Burns, known for his multipart historical documentaries such as “The Civil War,” tackles more recent events with mixed results in “The Central Park Five,” a documentary he co-directed with his daughter Sarah Burns and her husband, David McMahon.
The subject is the notorious rape and assault on “the Central Park Jogger,” as the press dubbed the female investment banker left for dead in the park’s upper reaches on April 19, 1989. Former Mayor Ed Koch describes it in the film — in a recent interview — as “the crime of the century.”
It was certainly one of the most covered crimes of the late 20th century, coming near the lowest point of the city’s war against crime, which began to reverse under Koch’s successor, David Dinkins, and rapidly escalated under Rudolph Giuliani.
It was also a time of severe racial tension. Things got especially ugly when the cops picked up several teenagers, some as young as 14, who had been part of a much larger group engaged in other attacks (dubbed “wildings” by the press) in the park that evening.
Five of these black teenagers were charged in the jogger’s rape, largely on the basis of confessions they made. Their accounts didn’t come close to agreeing, nor did any of their DNA match that taken from the victim. Yet they were convicted almost solely based on the confessions, which they recanted shortly afterward.
The film argues that the NYPD coerced these confessions by withholding food and sleep. But at least some of their parents are present for the videotaped confessions we see, and other suspects in the group refused to confess and were set free.
Years after the five served time for the attack, another confession to the jogger rape came from a jailed rapist responsible for a series of sexual assaults on the Upper East Side before and after the Central Park attack. His DNA matched: The film argues that the cops were so elated to have confessions from the five they never even bothered considering him as a suspect.
“The Central Park Five” includes interviews with all five of the suspects (one off-camera), two of their lawyers and their supporters — as well as a lot of often-alarming, racially charged archival footage with city officials, civilians and TV reporters.
The film tells us that prosecutors and police involved in the case declined to be newly interviewed, quite possibly because a lawsuit brought against the city by the freed suspects in 2003 is still pending. But you’d think there would be defense depositions from that suit that could be quoted from.
Also absent is the victim, who had no memory of the attack but went public with the story of her miraculous recovery (and identified herself as Trisha Meili) a few years ago. She reportedly declined to be interviewed.
“The Central Park Five” ultimately fails to make its case that five teenagers were sent to jail for a crime they didn’t commit solely because of institutional racism. The truth is less black and white: The trial took place during the term of New York City’s first black mayor, and even the African-American community was severely divided over whether the five were given a fair shake. It wasn’t exactly the local press’ finest hour, either.