Not long after the rape and beating of a white female jogger in Central Park in 1989, Donald J. Trump took out full-page newspaper ads about the case, calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty.
The five Black and Latino teenagers accused in the attack — Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson and Antron McCray, known as the Central Park Five — served years in prison before being cleared in 2002 by DNA evidence and the confession of another man.
But Mr. Trump has refused to apologize.
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday night, four of the five men — who now prefer to be called the Exonerated Five — said that what Mr. Trump did to them was devastating and proves that he is too callous and dangerous to serve a second term as president.
The men, excluding Mr. McCray, who was not present, offered vigorous endorsements of Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz.
Mr. Wise, who served more than 13 years in prison, the longest term among the group, told the convention crowd that the men’s youth had been stolen from them and they faced the screams of adults as they entered court each day because of Mr. Trump’s actions.
“He called us animals. He spent $85,000 on a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for our execution,” Mr. Wise said. “We were innocent kids, but we served a total of 41 years in prison.”
Mr. Salaam, who last year was elected to New York’s City Council in a Harlem district, said that Mr. Trump “wanted us dead.”
“He has never changed. And he never will,” Mr. Salaam said. “That man thinks that hate is the animating force in America. It is not.”
Asked in 2019 at the White House why he would not apologize in spite of the exonerations, Mr. Trump said, “They admitted their guilt.” The men have said that police officers coerced them into falsely confessing to the attack at the time.
The convention, with speakers including Hollywood celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and John Legend and political celebrities like former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, has been an exercise in characterizing Mr. Trump as fraudulent, cruel and selfish. That the exonerated men appeared on the final night of the convention, just hours before Ms. Harris, a former prosecutor, was to formally accept the nomination, served to hammer that point home.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who introduced the four men, sought to draw a contrast between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump: “I see a candidate who has sought to reform and uphold the law, and a man who wrongly assumes his mug shot appeals to Black Americans.”
While Ms. Harris has “consistently committed to making government work for those of us who have been at a disadvantage,” he added, Mr. Trump has been consistent about “making himself richer and sowing division to get that done.”
The men’s appearance was also a high-profile example of Black men backing Ms. Harris. Some polls have shown a skepticism toward the Democratic Party among that group.
Ms. Harris is leading Mr. Trump 78 percent to 16 percent among registered Black voters, according to recent polls by The New York Times and Siena College.
“Kamala Harris has also worked to make things fairer,” Mr. Wise said. “I know she will do the same as president.”
The post Members of ‘Central Park 5’ Say Trump Is Too Dangerous for Second Term appeared first on New York Times.