When they see us license#
When they see us series#

In a cruel twist Korey, who will be tried as an adult and serve the longest prison sentence, merely goes along to the police precinct to watch out for his friend Yusef. They remain among a smaller group interrogated at length by detectives. It was built for political gain and power.”Īs Part One continues, the five are eventually rounded up as part of the group of teen suspects in the Central Park events. It was built to oppress, it was built to control. She is part of a system that’s not broken, it was built to be this way. In an interview, DuVernay observed, “I think that it would be a tragedy if this story and the telling of it came down to one woman being punished for what she did because it’s not about her. (Elizabeth Lederer, the lead prosecutor in the case, has also resigned as a lecturer at Columbia University.) She was also obliged to resign from a number of prominent boards, including that of Vassar College, her alma mater.

When they see us series#

After the series aired May 31, Fairstein, a successful crime novelist, was dropped by Dutton, her publisher.

When they see us license#

DuVernay has admitted to taking artistic license in the dialogue and some of the timeline of events, but stands by her work. The first head of the sex crimes unit, Linda Fairstein (Felicity Huffman), responds to the discovery of the raped woman by declaring, “Every young black male who was in the park last night is a suspect in the rape of that woman.” Everyone they suspect to have been a part of the group is brought in for questioning.įairstein has objected to her portrayal in When They See Us, arguing that words are put in her mouth and she is shown as the central villain. Trisha Meili is found the next morning, brutally beaten and barely alive. Some of the youth are shown attacking some cyclists and a homeless person. Antron wanders into the park seemingly by accident. Korey talks with his girlfriend at a local fried chicken shop.Įventually Kevin, along with Raymond and Yusef, get caught up with a group of dozens of youth running through Central Park, joking, hassling and assaulting people-dubbed “wilding” by the cops. In Part One we see the five teenagers interacting with friends and family in their residential neighborhood in Harlem.Īntron discusses baseball with his father, and Kevin walks down the street with his sister, explaining about his trumpet playing, and how he wants to play first chair. Supporting the five is an ensemble cast as the family members of the boys, as well as detectives, prosecutors, lawyers, judges, prison guards and fellow prisoners. Depicting them when they are young are Asante Blackk (as Kevin Richardson), Caleel Harris (Antron McCray), Ethan Herisse (Yusef Salaam), Jharrel Jerome (Korey Wise) and Marquis Rodriguez (Raymond Santana, Jr.). There are outstanding performances by those playing the roles of the Central Park Five. The starting-point of DuVernay’s series is the proven innocence of the five youths and there is no question mark placed over this reality. The five were exonerated of guilt in all these crimes in 2002 after the real assailant confessed to being the sole attacker of the Central Park Jogger. They were sent to jail for from six to 14 years. The boys would be subject to brutal treatment-by the police who extracted confessions and by prosecutors who tried and convicted them on the basis of these coerced confessions.

When They See Us, directed and co-written by Ava DuVernay ( Selma, 13th, A Wrinkle in Time), dramatizes in vivid fashion the lives of the Central Park Five as they are caught up by this “law-and-order” frenzy.

The city’s media railed against what they described as “wolfpacks,” “animals” and “savages”-young-particularly black-men riding the subways and roving the streets supposedly inflicting violence on a terrified populace. A rise in crime-driven by poverty and unemployment-was met by escalating police violence, meted out disproportionately in black and Latino neighborhoods. Housing and schools for the working class were underfunded and decaying. The five black and Latino youths-Raymond Santana Jr., 14 Kevin Richardson, 14 Antron McCray, 15 Yusef Salaam, 15 and Korey Wise, 16 (then known as Kharey Wise)-were apprehended, interrogated and eventually indicted and convicted on charges of assault, robbery, riot and the rape and attempted murder of Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old white woman, in Manhattan’s Central Park on April 19, 1989.ġ980s New York saw an unprecedented surge of financial wealth accompanied by burgeoning social inequality. In 1989, New York City and much of the US was gripped by the story of a group of young men from Harlem who would come to be known as the Central Park Five. When They See Us, a Netflix original series, directed and co-written by Ava DuVernay.