'When They See Us' Shows The Disturbing Truth About How False Confessions Happen
In the first episode of the Netflix series When They See Us, members of the New York City Police Department lie to five teenagers as they’re interrogated about the brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park. The scenes are painful to watch as the young actors portray the pain and desperation of hour after hour of deceptive interrogation. Their parents, determined to get their children out of the police station and back home, plea with them to say whatever the cops want to hear.
The teenagers, who became known in the press as the Central Park Five, didn’t know each other before they got to the police station, and the cops played them off one another. They told 14-year-old Raymond Santana they had evidence against 15-year-old Kevin Richardson, and if he just helped them build a case against Richardson by placing himself into the crime scene, he’d get to go home. They made the boys believe they were acting merely as witnesses to a crime.
In the end, four of the five boys falsely confessed. And even though no DNA linked them to the scene of the crime, and their descriptions of the victim's clothing and injuries didn't match the crime scene, they were convicted. In 2002, after prison sentences that ranged from six to 13 years, they were all released when a murderer and serial rapist confessed to the assault—and his DNA matched with that found on the jogger.