As someone who has experienced wrongful conviction due to the bias and misconduct of police, it meant a lot to witness so many people take to the streets to fight racial injustice this year.
But we can’t stop there. We must push leaders at every level to meaningfully reform policies — that’s why I’m thrilled the Innocence Project is committed to doing just that in 2021. The legal and policy teams will be focusing on legislation across the country that addresses police misconduct, accountability, and transparency.
Today marks 18 years since myself and my four co-defendants — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise — or the Exonerated Five as many know us, were finally cleared of all charges against us after years in prison for a crime we didn’t commit.
Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana wrongly arrested as suspects in the infamous Central Park jogger case of 1989 (Image: AP Photo/David Burns).
We were all just teenagers when we were arrested for the 1989 attack on a white woman who was jogging in New York’s Central Park. The police interrogated and intimidated us for hours. They kept us from lawyers and repeatedly lied to us to terrify and exhaust us until we finally told them what they wanted to hear. The case made headlines and for months the media demonized us. It wasn’t until decades later that our stories made headlines again with the release of the Netflix series “When They See Us,” which showed the injustices we had to fight against.
While many now know our stories, there are many more innocent people whose stories are still untold. Wrongful convictions happen far too often, especially to Black and brown people. Police who use violence on the streets or rely on unethical investigative methods, like the detectives in our cases, are rarely held accountable, so they continue to hold power in a system that sends many innocent people like me behind bars.
The system is broken, and until we hold those in power accountable for their actions, how can we expect anything to change? We need new policies that will actually administer consequences for official misconduct.
Yusef Salaam in Atlanta at the 2019 Innocence Network Conference. Image: Lacy Atkins/Innocence Project.
The Innocence Project is committed to working on policy reforms that will address misconduct and lack of accountability around police practices.
The Innocence Project exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. www.innocenceproject.org
