Gate of the wrongly accused….

I despise what happened to these kids and how Trump went after them was hideous but they were out on a jacking spree mugging everyone in sight when the rape occurred. I’d like to see them compensated for their lost time but putting up a stone monument to them is a little perpexling.

This is like naming streets Gay Avenue etc. It is all a prop. it does nothing to change the systems of oppressions in place.

This country erected statues and created holidays for men who did a lot worse.

Good thing no one is being held long term without a trial anywhere in the city

Yeah, but those were white guys!! These are black teens and they might have stolen from people, so who cares if we wrongly accuse them of rape??

...is the thought process, I assume

And yet, like with Gay Avenue, people will still complain about it and reveal their biases

Oh people will always be hateful monsters

Or maybe they're both bad and you shouldn't treat politics as a team sport? Maybe grow up a little?

And those statues were also wrong. Does that make you right?

Maybe acknowledge that being wrongly accused of rape is unjust regardless of whether you've stolen from someone. Team sports have nothing to do with it (unless you're suggesting that only one "team" says that).

I actually think celebrating different sexual orientations is a way of creating fewer monsters in the first place.

That's funny because people take photos in front of Gay Street every minute of every day, because it brings them joy and they want to share. Just because you have no personal stake in an issue doesn't mean it's not important.

Yet here you are defending this statement, about a group of boys who went to jail and spent a lot time behind bars. They paid for whatever crimes they may have committed that night and for crimes they didn’t commit.

What jail time has any of the individuals this country erected statues of serve? Also love how you leaped over the holiday part!

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These are 4 words etched into a gate in Central Park, not a 10 point plan to tackle criminal justice and world issues. Every entrance gate has words etched on to them and now this one does too. This isn't trying to be anything other than what it is - recognizing a group of people in a georgraphically significant location.

Honestly arguments like this are exhausting. We can walk and chew gum. We can commission art and signs and still work on fixing larger systems.

It is absolutely unjust and should be recognized as such. This thread was, from the beginning, talking about recognizing that while not memorializing people that nonetheless also committed other crimes.

Those statues and holidays are also wrong. Does that make you right?

I actually don't think whether or not they committed "other crimes" was the point of the post. The point was that they were wrongly accused due to racism.

As another commenter pointed out, it's never been a requirement that someone be perfect for a statue to be made of them. Why start imposing that requirement now?

If you put up a statue of someone, you better have a damn good reason and solve every associated problem. That's why they waited until the last concussion victim recovered before putting up the Rocky statue in Philly

You speak as if those statues no longer exist and those holidays are no longer celebrated.

I’ll answer your question after you create a post about why we should get rid of those statues and why we shouldn’t be celebrating holidays that honor criminals.

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That's a good counter-argument. I think for a lot of people the spree mugging is a big enough issue that they are going to have an issue memorializing them.

I'll edit to "are".

I'm not even making a post about getting rid of this one, just expressing mild dissent. 😂 I generally save my energy for more pressing issues than statues, but feel free to point me towards anything you think should come down. The most obvious target to me in NYC is the Columbus statue at Columbus Circle.

> I generally save my energy for more pressing issues than statues

That is a lie. Look at you in the comments right now. I wasn’t even talking to you and you jumped in the comments. Why?

I'm sure they feel very very honored by their government. It probably even makes up for being wrongly convicted.

Spree mugging or not, those people would have an issue with this particular memorial no matter what, for reasons that are extremely obvious to everyone.

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Heheh erected

This is how conservatives argue about everything now, I guess. So tiresome

How about we also put up a plaque somewhere condemning the two lead prosecutors and the cops who still insist they didn't do anything wrong?

1 Hogan Place seems like a good location.

Note that the Innocence Project, in this article (and presumably elsewhere), is pushing for legislation that would make it illegal for police to lie to a suspect during interrogation.

I wonder what the overlap is between people who oppose this statue on those grounds and people who defend Columbus monuments or Trump votes. I'm guessing...very large.

This is the flowchart I use to determine my position on every issue.

"This Monument stands as an apology for the time the criminal justice system of New York falsely accused a group of violent, larcenous reprobates of also being rapists"

Aside from wishing we all have mercy for teenage mistakes*, big and small, I think you might be missing the point. The Fives' case has taken on much larger significance in terms of how the entire system abuses its power. Criminal justice, media, prisons etc.

To that end, the plight of the "exonerated" goes beyond just the Fives' story. The gate seems to honor this. And if their story continues to bring attention to issues of systemic bias and even more pointed reforms against corrupt prosecutors and coerced confessions, then I'm all for it.

(* Not sure where the men are now with admitting these lesser/other crimes, but the on-the-record confessions of the robberies or assaults also gets muddied with the coerced confession of the rape. Cops were coercing confessions. But supposedly the boys confessions of the lesser crimes matched with eye witness accounts and timelines (According the the Times). While the rape confessions did not.)

I guess you asked me to create a post, and that's more energy to me than a comment. These comments take very little energy.

Just getting back to this thread now and I very much agree with this statement.

And now that I’m actually reading the article it appears the gate is in fact not directly for the CP5 but rather for all people who have been exonerated like you say, which is a noble cause. So here here to the people who made this happen and I hope the CP5 get more of these symbolic shows of remorse + fat pockets due to the injustice. Now just have to put trumps head on a spike outside the gates of the exonerated and go full GoT.

(Yes I Commented without reading the article have mercy for me 😂)

The point is that supporting both is contradictory, yet many people do it. Because their issue with commemorating the exonerated people isn't that they were flawed individuals. It's something else.

I’m not a mind reader. My issue with honoring these five guys in particular—and there’s a gigantic difference between, on the one hand, apologizing to them on behalf of the city and state, paying them compensation, and condemning the miscarriage of justice that happened, and, on the other hand, honoring them—is that all the information I have strongly suggests that these guys were absolute pieces of shit, at least as teenagers.

What Trump voters think about this just doesn’t enter into my mind at all. Not every issue needs to be a fight among two warring factions for control over an overarching narrative. But that’s just me.

If Mark Wahlberg were unjustly convicted of rape and then exonerated, I would still think he was a piece of shit.

Taking a step back, though, this debate shouldn’t really be about these guys in particular. The gate doesn’t honor them specifically. It’s about people who have been exonerated. But it’s hard to separate them from the larger issue given that they always show up as the poster boys.

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You are exonerated! Walking to the exit o_o

How long until we get the Gate of Victims Without Justice to honor those attacked, raped or murdered whose assailants are still free?

It's Gay Street and it's named after Mr. Gay

Where’s White Entertainment Television!!!!

I love this and my reaction was one of appreciation

But I already knew that there are gonna be people who see this headline and say “honoring criminals but not out veterans/first responders/police/etc”

NYC is tired of people who constantly excuse criminal behavior. The "conservative" you responded to says

>sorry that it bothers you that I don’t honor scumbags who commit gang assault and muggings.

and I agree.

The vast majority of crime victims in NYC are minorities.

If your main takeaway from the Central Park Five is that it doesn't matter whether or not they were innocent of the crime they were incarcerated for because they were a bunch of "scumbags" (I might have gone with "savages" or "thugs" if I was blowing the dogwhistle that hard), to quote Bad Santa, your soul is dogshit and everything about you is ugly.

Those poor kids. They didn't rape her. They just beat her and held her down while their friend did.

Seems like a great use of public resources. Bravo justice advocates

Is that bad?

A suspect in a burglary is being interrogated by police. He's waived his Miranda rights because he's very stupid. He denies any involvement in the burglary. The police tell him, look, buddy, the surveillance camera got you on tape as clear as day. Stop wasting everyone's time and confess and maybe this will go easier for you. The suspect confesses. But the police lied: there was no surveillance tape. Should the confession be tossed out because the police didn't tell the truth?

Yes. You should not be able to lie. Other countries survive just fine without this ability for their cops.

A suspect in a burglary is told they are caught on camera and the only suspect. They didn't do it but take a plea deal which gives less time because they're terrified of the evidence they think exists, even if they know they only walked by at the wrong time.

Should they be compelled to take a plea deal for that reason?

Should an undercover policeman be allowed to tell the lie that he is not a cop?

Nobody is compelled to take a plea deal.

But yes, I lean toward thinking that conduct by interrogators should remain legal.

Season 3 of Serial discusses at length how many people are basically coerced into taking a plea deal. A lawyer even went on record and said that judges get pissed if too many people choose a jury trial. The courts are so overloaded that there has to be a certain number of plea deals or else everything grinds to a halt. The system is designed to punish people who don’t plea guilty.

What about the other hypothetical I asked: Should an undercover cop be required to tell people that he’s a cop, or should he be allowed to lie about that?

I just wanted to give a resource where people can learn about why plea deals can be coercive

Oh sorry; I thought you were the other guy.

Np it’s an interesting topic!

I think that's different since it's not an interrogation.

It is different but why should the cop be allowed to lie? The lie that he’s not undercover may lead others to make incriminating statements that are later used against them in court, just as statements in an interrogation are.

Edit: just got a 14-day ban for my initial comment on this thread.

Rule 1 - No intolerance, dog whistles, violence or petty behavior

(a). Intolerance will result in a permanent ban. Toxic language including referring to others as animals, subhuman, trash or any similar variation is not allowed.

(b). No dog whistles.

(c). No inciting violence, advocating the destruction of property or encouragement of theft.

(d). No petty behavior. This includes announcing that you have down-voted or reported someone, picking fights, name calling, insulting, bullying or calling out bad grammar.

Undercover is entirely different imo, the other guy.

Are you aware what percentage of people go to trial? People can absolutely be compelled to take a plea deal; for financial reasons, for family reasons, for the sheer horror that is jail. If you aren't even going to acknowledge that possibility, I'm not sure it's worth discussing. It's absolutely coercive. It's designed that way.

Of course undercover is different, they're out in the wild so to speak. If you can't see how that's different, again, I think you're being disingenuous. They're two very different things.

14 day ban for what???

For real?? Across rom the 110th street jail???? SMH

Exactly.

Or, alternatively, you are intelligent. I go with the latter.

They DIDN'T do anything wrong. Just did their job - that is, trying to make the streets safer. How many WHEN THEY SEE US t shirts do you own?

So what's your point?

That somehow people will find something wrong with this and complain about it

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