“My release was the result of collective efforts by many of you who are here today,” Salaam, who spent almost seven years innocently in prison, told supporters after his victory. “And tonight begins my chance to free us from being overlooked and underserved.”
Salaam, then 15 years old, three other African-American teenagers and a Hispanic teenager were arrested for the brutal rape of a white investment banker in New York’s Central Park in April 1989. The case caused quite a stir at the time: The real estate mogul and later US President Donald Trump placed advertisements in which he called for the death penalty to be reintroduced in the US state of New York.
The five suspects were interrogated, some of them without a lawyer or the presence of a parent, and were ultimately convicted of rape and attempted murder in 1990, despite numerous unanswered questions. Some of them were imprisoned for up to 13 years until the real perpetrator confessed.
The case – filmed in 2019 in the Netflix series “When They See Us” by director Ava DuVernay – is one of the most famous miscarriages of justice in US history and became a symbol of racism in the police and judiciary. In 2014, the men reached an agreement with the city of New York for a total of $41 million in compensation.
