from me. this was wild and this guy is screaming this victory and we had heard that there were possibly three gunmen instead of one. and in my gut i knew there was just this one. i knew he was the same one, i just had that gut feeling. the other security team member says go check the lobby. so i run down and check the lobby and clear it and then i see all the colorado springs squads screeching to a halt in the front and going by the east entrance where they heard he was coming in. so that's pretty much what happened. [applause]

>> we have an expert panel. this is not a debate panel. we do have time 12 minutes to be exact for a couple of questions. o if you have them, go ahead and start. t it's not necessary we hear from all four on all of the answers so i'll try to moderate that. keep in mind we now have 11 minutes but we'll get these questions in. >> scene, it's nice to see you again. and everybody buy her book it's great. last time i talked to her she was looking for a job. i'm kelsey alexander.

i'm a capitalist and i would invite you all to come to the gun club and learn to shoot. if you would like to come as my guest talk to me afterwards. mary katharine you had great suggestions about things to say. we said every single one of those things last week. those things don't work for the legislatures. you are exactly right the agenda is coming from somewhere else and i don't know how we are going to beat anytime colorado. i would like to suggest that elections matter and so does money. elections wernt mentioned in this panel and what do you think of that? >> i agree and sympathize. i was speaking more on a national level where i think it's he has likely anything will pass which is why they are going to states. as far as elections mattering, the fact we have a great number of republican governors and

republican houses and gnat in the state is a great benefit. right now it doesn't feel like it in colorado. on a state level i do think we have earned ourselves some defense against this kind of thing. i think ultimately what matters is when guns become normized for many people and you get 4.5 million people as part of a second amendment organization, that's ultimately what changes people's minds. that is what is keeping every one of these red states from voting on an assault weapons ban. my argument i talk about maybe don't stop every piece of legislation but maybe change some hearts and minds and that's what we have to do. >> what mary katharine said there is no twhay people who

live in the constitution can outspend michael bloomberg but they have something which he doesn't had is genuine grassroots and that is what has kept the second amendment alive. it's not republican versus democrat issue. there are good and bad people on both sides of the issue. but what will save the second amendment or not in 2014 is people getting out and volunteering and saying we immediate a mistake in 2012 we were apathetic and the n.r.a. was warning us about what obama was going to do in his second term but he hasn't done much in his first term. now we see that coming true. there will be the opportunity to remove the legislators who sided with the big gors and elect the legislators who believe in tolerance and the constitution.

[applause] >> my name is terri dod. my right to bear arms is a creator granted right. y rights are from god, from my treat or the not from a constitution. the constitution didn't give us rights. i'm one of the guys that represents at least a third of the men in the country who believe in the principle come and take them. i believe that the attack, the war that's being launched against the people, the citizens of our country, i believe that they don't have to take our guns. all they have to do is criminalize to us make the freedom movement impotent. i'd like to hear dave's opinion on that.

>> some of the panelists have talked about part of the purpose of this culture war is the ability of independent self-protection which the right to keep and bear arms represents. so people who want everyone to be managed from crade toll grave from their spoirs finds blidse the particular details of the issue that gun ownership is an afront to that view. the american revolution changed from a very heated political debate between the colonies and great britain on issues such as x exation without reputation when the british decided to crack down on gun ownership.

the king in 1774 embargoed the import of guns and gun powder into the united states. the royal governor such at gauge in massachusetts and done mor in virginia did predawn seizures of places where the republic stores of arms or am in addition. and then what turned this whole thing from a intense political debate into a war was house to house gun confiscation on the morning of political 19, 1775 at concord and that's when the shooting started and it never stopped until the war was resolved. i would hope that the more prudent and responsible supporters of some gun laws recognize that when you cross that red line into

confiscation, you are opening up pandora's box. >> good afternoon. my name is robert gail. thank y'all for coming and especially mayor kathryn. thanks for an eloquent speech on lobby day a few years back. i have a question mainly for dave, is it possible to pass liability to our legislatures to for injury to people on our campuses if they have removed the right for self-protection? >> the sans no. the only remedy is at the ballot tax. >> we'll remedy at the ballot box. >> the level of sophistication of gun opponents was made clear when i heard someone say no gun

hunter would need a magazine with 30 round because if you hot a deer with that you could never teet meat. that is crazy. i'm wondering if there is any data, those are an elk dotes, is there any data about whether gun free zones attract criminals and shooters? >> unquestionably. it's 2 of 50 only two times it's been in a non-fwun free zone. we know in the aurora shooting here, mr. holmes i believe his name was had closer seaters than the one that was a gun free zone. these people are crazy but they are not irrational. so it's a different thing. one of the things worth

highlighting when you talk about this, shooters and people who practice lawful self-defense stop a shooting, we don't have a national debate about that. the bias is in the samp bling and how people talk about it. in newtown connecticut there were two times people stopped a shooting. once in san antonio at a movie theater that was not a gun free zone because it was texas and tpwhun cspan.org which said it was a gun free zone but the guy with the gun walked right past it. there say deadly fiction that ill straits how much this is about sanctity and purity and am i keeping these out of a hate free zone or danger zone. >> i want to ecothe utter

ignorance of oh ponets of fwuns or gun laws. i was on with bill o'reilly at the beginning of this whole debate and one suggested a law that had passed virginia tech masacre with 98% of the senate bhiped it so he had no idea what sort of laws were already there. and i had to say to them at one point you know all of them are semiautomatic correct. they were saying why don't we just ban the semiautomatic one science i was saying all right explaining that and pointing that out if you want to make new laws you should probably learn about the one that is are in place. people like jeanne and civilians stopping these snens and making it household names and making it our job to make

that happen. it's disrespectful and jeanne is not looking to be a big hero but these are the folks who really do protect us. and their stories are ignored. blatantly, willfulfully on purpose. the gun opponents were using data right after newtown to suggest no civilian had ever stopped a mass shooting. a mass shooting had to be four or more people died. well, a lot of them stopped them before they killed four or more people. this is a good thing. that's an important part, making those folks real. jeanne is the archetype of a hero in every crime drama on t.v. and the liberals won't allow her to be one in real life.

>> this will be the last question. sorry for everyone nells line. >> it's not really a question. it's more of a thank you. >> just so you know, jeanne, i was the fourth ambulance on that scene that sunday. i decided not to go to church but to go on a shift that was open. i remember when the call went out and they said it was possibly a shooting. they said then it was possibly more people injured. it was divine intervention that put you in that place that day and we thank you far standing us. fwod bless you, mam. >> once again, thank you to our reat panel and great ideas sbe

lex you'll am in addition to win our war for freedom that we are all engaged n. mary atharine said it just right, jeanne doesn't expect hero status from is us. if it's i did vin intervention that propels to you buy her book, you should. thank you again to our panel. >> this week the president's weekly address is given by fran seen wheeler. sheefs the mother of a child killed in the newtown shooting. she calls for action on gun control laws. this is the first time someone other than president obama or vice president biden has delivered the address since they took office. he urges them to work with the

republicans and balance the budget. >> hi, as you've probably noticed, i'm not the president. i'm just a citizen. as a citizen i'm here at the white house today because i want to make a difference and i hope you will join me. >> my name is fran seen wheeler, my husband david is with me. we live in sandy hook, sect sect. we have two sons. nate is a fourth grader at sandy hook elementary school. our younger son ben, age six was murdered in his first grade classroom exactly four months ago this weekend. david and i lost our beloved son and nate lost his best friend. whoon turned out to be the last morning of his life, ben told

me out of the blue, i still want to be an architect mom but i also want to be a pail tolings because that is what nate is going to be and i want to do everything nate does. his energy kept him running across the soccer field long after the game was over and he couldn't wait to get to school every morning. he sang with perfect pitch and had just played at his third pi an know resitele. bright and spirited ben experienced life at full tilt. until that morning 20 of our children and six of our educate blue. re gone out of the i've heard people say the tidal wave of anguish people felt on

that day reseeded but not to us. to us it feels as if it happened just yesterday. in the four months since we lost our loved ones, thousands of other americans have died at the end of a gun. thousands of other families across the united states are also drowning in our grief. please help us do something before our tragedy becomes your tragedy. sometimes i close my eyes and all i can remember is that awful day waiting at the sandy hook volunteer fire house for the boy who would never come home. the same fire house that was home to ben's tiger scout den six. but other times i feel ben's presence feeling me with courage for what i have to do for him and all the others taken from us so violently and

too soon. we have to convince the senate to come together and pass common sense gun responsibility reforms that will make our communities safer and prevent more tragedies like the one we thought would never happen to us. when i packed for washington on monday, it looked like the senate might not act at all. then after the president spoke in hartford and a dozen of us met with senators to share our stories, more than 2/3 of the senate voted to move forward. but that's only the start. they haven't yet passed any bills that will help keep guns out of the hand of dangerous people and a lot of people are fighting to make sure they never do. now is the time to act. please join us. you can talk to your senator

too. or visit white house.gov to find out how you can join the president and get involved. help this be the moment where real change begins. from the bottom of my heart thank you. >> it's an honor to speak with you. i'm a new member of congress from indiana's second district. monday is april 15 so hardworking families are putting the 23i7b shg touches on their taxes. it's always a stressful exercise figuring out how much we have to hand over to cover our government's bills. unfortunately many in washington want to make this harder on you and your familiarly. take the budget submitted this week, he says it's responsible, a compromise even. if we were to implement the president's budget, taxes would

go up on just about every american including middle class americans. he wants to impose $1 trillion in new taxes, that's in addition to 1 $1 trillion from obama care and the increased taxes from january. when i grocery shop each weekend, i talk to moms and dads concerned about the rising price of groceries and rising cost what's more, the president ignores the nation spending, and that makes it worse. every household share of the national debt to increase by more than $60,000. that is not compromise. if you want the president's budget claim to find common ground, he says he will not follow through unless he can uphold more tax increases.

worst of all, the white house says the president budget never balances ever. the president's budget is not a compromise. it is a blank check for more spending and more debt. if that were the answer, and millions of americans would not be leaving the workforce and asking, where are the jobs? republicans are offering a better way. our budget will balance in 10 years and and the waste of taxpayer dollars and foster a healthier economy, delivering real solutions to help improve people's lives. here are what some solutions look like. our balanced budget sees opportunity to get america back to work. like the keystone pipeline. second, we will repeal obamacare.

we work toward patient reforms. finally, our budget lays down the groundwork for a fairer and simpler tax code. it would close loopholes and lower tax rates for everyone. it would mean more jobs and higher wages. tax in they would not have to be a anymore.-- tax day wouldn't have to be sucha a headached y more. these are good ideas. we are ready to act on them. we turned a deficit into a surplus and restored a aaa bond rating and help with the job creation. in the 1990s, president clinton work together with republicans to balance the budget. instead of the same old take it or leave it approach, president obama should work with republicans to find common ground so we can balance our budget, grow the economy, and improve the lives of american families. thank you for listening.

enjoy the rest of your weekend. lex meant, ken burns talks about his latest documentary, -- , ken burns talks about his latest documentary, the central arc five. -- the central park five. republican senator randy paul said this week -- spoke this week at howard university. he talked about the gop's support for civil rights after the civil war, private school vouchers, drug laws and mandatory minutes from -- and mandatory minimum sentencing. you can watch sunday on c-span at 7:05 pm eastern. let orphaned at 11, she lived with her favorite uncle, james buchanan, years later, he

becomes president and because he is not married, she served as white house hostess. she is the first to be called first lady on a regular basis and is so popular she sets trends in clothing and children and ships are named after her. a look at her life and her predecessor. , monday night, my deadline :00 eastern on c-span and c-span three. also on c-span radio and the network. click ken burns was the feature d speaker. fivefilm "the central park gi ." he talks about the police investigation, evidence and byonsistencies ingnored

law enforcement, the media, and public at large. the documentary premieres next tuesday on pbs. this is about an hour. lex please visit press.org/ institute. i would like to welcome our speaker today. our head table includes guest of our speaker as both working

journalists who are club members. if you hear applause, members of the general public are attending so it is not necessarily evidence of a lack of journalistic objectivity? . i like to welcome our c-span public radio radio audiences. our lunches are featured on our weekly podcast from the national press club available on itunes. you can follow the action today on twitter using the hash tag and pc lines. after our guest speech concludes we will have a question and answer period and i will ask as many questions as time permits. time to introduce our head table guest. i'd ask each of you to stand briefly as your name is announced. from your right, glen marcus. documentary writer and producer with public communications incorporated. ken smith with nbc washington. robert macpherson, lifestyle

editor with the ajan press. jennifer lawson senior vice president for television at the corporation for public broadcasting. megan poinske, editor for "the washington post.? sharon rockefeller, president and c.e.o., weta, the local pbs affiliate. skipping over the podium, allison fitzgerald, project manager for financial and state news for the center for public integrity and the speaker's committee chair. skipping over our speaker for the moment natalie devalsio for "usa today," president and c.e.o. of pbs, paula kruger, julie bikowicz, national reporter for bloomberg news, akio fuji bureau chief for nikkei and molly mccluskey of the press club freelance committee. [applause] in 1989, five harlem teenagers were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in new york city's

central park. that sexual assault of a white jogger sparked a media frenzy and public demand for justice that led to the conviction of the so-called central park five. despite the d.n.a. evidence that excluded them and no eyewitness accounts, tying them to the crime. a serial rapist later admitted to being the perpetrator. but not before these young men served complete sentences of between six and 13 years. in his latest documentary, our guest today, ken burns, tells the story through the vivid testimony of the central park five in what is an unflinching and painful anatomy of wrongful conviction. the movie was directed and produced by mr. burns along with his daughter, sarah burns, who wrote the book that led to the film and with david mcmahon. sarah was only 6 when the events took place and when she learned about it, after the teens' convictions were overturned more than a decade later, she was so taken with the story that she

wrote her undergraduate thesis and then the book on the topic. the film based on her book, documents how the forces of the justice system, the press, and popular prejudice conspired to undermine the rights of five young men and condemn them to years in prison for a crime they did not commit. last night, when we screened the film here at the national press club, we were honored to have with us two of the central park five. yusef salam and santana who have been traveling around the country to major film festivals. and drawing praise from film critics the documentary has been making news. a federal judge in february ruled that new york city may not look at outtakes, notes or other material from the film in their efforts to fight a $250 million lawsuit brought by the central park five against the city. we will discuss this and other developments in our conversation with mr. burns whom we are delighted to

welcome back to the press club for his eighth appearance at a luncheon. he has been called one of the "most influential documentary makers of all time" and honored with a lifetime achievement award by the academy of television arts and sciences. ken burns' films have won 12 emmy awards and received two oscar nominations. among them have been highly acclaimed documentaries about jazz, baseball, the brooklyn bridge, u.s. national parks, and of course the civil war which was the highest rated series in the history of american public television. please join me now in welcoming back to the national press club to discuss his latest film mr. ken burns. [applause] >> thank you so much. it's good to be back here. i'm thrilled to be back here. let me not bury the lead. on april 16, that's this coming tuesday, pbs will broadcast our two-hour film "the central park

five.? this film would not have been made without the help of an extraordinary number of people. some of whom are in this room. and it is important for me before i begin to acknowledge them. first, i would like to thank weta, my production partners for the last 30 years. and particularly its c.e.o. sharon rockefeller who is up here. they have been the best production partners anyone could imagine. we have been through thick and thin on a number of projects. and we have counted on them having our back. and they've had our back through the many decades that this association has gone on. and i've been blessed to have that association. i happen to be one member of an extremely important family.

and that is public broadcasting. there is no other place on the dial where you can get the kind of quality work that happens only on public television without commercials, which is sometimes taken for granted. but incredibly important in our distracted universe. we can actually dive deep into subjects in ways no one else can do. and we do it serving the public. it is the public broadcasting service that we are about. and i'm honored to be a small part of it and a little niche doing history in an extraordinary network that spans the entire united states with more affiliates than any other network and touches deeply into the lives of people not just with its extraordinary prime time schedule but with continuing education and adult learning and early childhood things. even homeland security, crop reports, all sorts of things

that help stitch our country together. it is by no means some elitist coastal institution but something that's beloved in red state and blue across this extraordinary continent of ours. and so i'm very pleased to have spent my entire professional life producing films for public broadcasting. it is the only place to be. and i'm very honored that paula kruger is the chief executive officer and president of pbs is here with me. and a dear friend as well as sharon is. we don't make these films without funding. and as you can imagine, a film like this has some very dicey aspects to it. not everybody who is interested in the traditional historical work that we've undertaken over those last 35 years have been as excited about the possibilities of this as have the people who actually did fund it. and i have to acknowledge their support from the very beginning. without them, this literally could not, would not have been made.

and that is also pbs. but also our long-time supporter. more of our films have been supported by the corporation for public broadcasting than any other entity. they have been there at the very beginning of my professional life. and their chief executive pat harrison who isn't here today but ably represented by jennifer lawson also a friend of many years has been extraordinary in helping us fulfill our desires to make the variety of films we've had the opportunity to make. they were in from the beginning. but when we surveyed the landscape of other possible funders, most shrank away from this very difficult subject. this recent history if you will. two groups stood out. one was the better angels society which is a nonprofit group that was started to help us fund our historical exercises. and bobby and polly stein of jacksonville, florida, stepped forward and made a significant

grant. but no grant was more important, more central than the huge grant that came from the atlantic philanthropies. which made the largest grant of this particular production and indeed the largest grant i've ever received percentage wise for any film. upward of 75% of our entire budget. it was an amazing risk. and commitment. and we can't imagine having lived through the last several years which have been quite arduous producing the film without them. and i'm sorry, i don't think there's anyone from atlantic philanthropies here. but if they are, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. there are some missing people here. and angela alluded to them. the first is my daughter sarah. who has been on the road for way too long and is rushing back to take care of my grand daughter, her daughter. and is the author of all of this. not just of the superb book that

she published in 2011 that her husband, david mcmahon, and i had the opportunity to see as the first pages were coming out of her computer and realized what an extraordinary film this could also be in addition to a book. but she has been the author in the sense that for more than a decade, she has felt and carried and agonized over this story. she has been by turns obsessed but also outraged by it. and that outrage has fueled a great deal of her creative energy. it has fueled my own interest, her husband, david mcmahon's interest, and i don't think we would in any way possibly be here without her superb guidance. she is an incredibly intelligent woman. incredibly articulate. she has also i can assure you as her proud papa had a fierce sense of fairness all her life.

and there was something about this story that so offended her sense of fairness. not just in the classic sense that we feel as americans that there should be a level playing field. not just in the sense that things should just be fair and people should sulk and take their ball home but in a kind of deep human sense of fairness. because this story as much as it enjoins and gathers together themes of importance historical moment, it nonetheless also reflects on just basic human things of failure, of mistakes, of atonement, of forgiveness, of reconciliation. of compassion. and all of those are in great abundance with sarah and she kept us in the right direction. the rest of that us is david mcmahon. he is my son-in-law, her husband, but he is much more than that. he is the creative center of this film. he managed it day to day. not just as a field general and a producer but as the person most responsible for the

creative look and feel of this film. no him, no film. and he has worked tirelessly behind the scenes for way too long and deserves the lion's share of the credit that comes to this film. and so i feel as i speak to you this afternoon the absence like amputated limbs that tickle an itch long after they're gone, my daughter and son-in-law deserve to be here. deserve to share this podium. deserve to receive whatever credit you might extend to the film. and if there's anything you don't like, it's all my fault. [laughter] also missing are five extraordinary individuals. anton mccray, kevin richardson, yusef salaam, raymond santana and cory wise. they are the central park five. if you were a member of the

central park five in 1989, you were among the worst human beings on earth. today, that is quite different. and to be counted among the central park five is to be counted among a band of brothers who i think represent in some ways the best of us, that represent a kind of heroic forbearance in the face of unbelievable odds, who exhibit startling lack of bitterness and anger, who have grown in the course of this immense and infuriating tragedy into extraordinary young men who have graced our lives and become friends of our family and have been out on the road with us, with a style and a degree of articulation that i think those who were here last night when we had the opportunity to screen the film understand.

they bring a special pathos to our understanding of this story. and they are the direct connections to what happened. in fact, what happened is at the heart of what i want to talk briefly about. i look very much forward to our conversation. we, sarah and david mcmahon, and i, had two sort of animating questions if you will, as we began this subject. first is an obvious one. and it ought to be on the lips of all journalists, though, in fact, part of this disturbing story is the utter failure of our profession to rise to the occasion in this particular instance. and that is how could something like this have happened? in america? at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 20th century? how could this injustice have taken place? and second, because their voices were stolen from them, ripped apart by police and prosecutors and then an ever-compliant media interested in whatever, you

know, if it bled, it led. they lost their voice. we wanted to ask another question. who are they? who are they? could we in some ways not restore or make them whole. that will have to come from other places. but could we at least listen to them and find out who we are? we are in a country, we live in a country that is so dialectally preoccupied. we are certain that if we make the distinction about the other, that you are red state or blue state. that you are black or you are white. you are male or you are female. you are rich or you are poor. you are gay or you are straight. you live here, or you live there. that somehow aha, we will have the whole of you. and unfortunately, particularly, when it comes to race and class, we do a lousy job and exploit the gulfs between people and forget that each human life

within the sound of my voice is as important and as full as any other life in this room. and unfortunately, that was stolen from the central park five. and so missing also and must be foremost in our thoughts are not only the authors of this, sarah and dave, but also the five of them who are in every sense of the word real and complete human beings who have undertaken trials, none of us in this room could possibly even imagine. and have come out as good if not better than anyone in this room. there, i did it. i made a distinction. let me tell you what happened. on april 19, it was a wednesday night, 1989. in new york central park. a woman, a white woman jogger, an investment banker at salomon

brothers, was brutally assaulted and raped and left for dead in the northern reaches of central park. earlier that evening, a group of perhaps 25, perhaps 30, perhaps more young boys, teenagers, african-american and hispanic, entered the park. it was a wednesday night. a school night. but school was off the next day. there was a passover holiday. and their parents had given them permission to stay out late. some had stayed behind and played basketball games at the projects. others had gone into the park with a group of people. most didn't know each other. they were going around, doing something that was frequently called just hanging out or just wiling away the hours or in the vernacular, whiling. spending time doing nothing. they proceeded to go through the

park. several of them began to sort of harass joggers and bicyclists, threw stones and tried to interrupt their course. they kept moving farther and farther south into the park. they rolled a drunk. they not -- not all of them. this is a couple of people. it was watched by some of them. and then there was a serious assault made, a felony assault on a man who was beaten enough to require temporary hospitalization. and all of this was taking place over the course of some time that early evening in the park. the police were notified as joggers and bicyclists came across them in the park. and they came and sort of flashed their sirens and broke up this crowd. and they scattered. and reconvened some of them, many of them went home at that moment. but some began to be picked up by the police, including two of the central park five who had become the central park five,

kevin richardson, and raymond santana. and they were held along with a lot of other boys for unlawful assembly. and we're going to be sent home when their parents arrive with a citation for family court. and that was it. and everybody was beginning to feel relaxed when late that night, the woman's body was found near death in the northern reaches of central park. she was so close to death that it was a sign to homicide -- assigned to homicide and certain she was going to die and immediately decided that perhaps and not unreasonably so, that these youths that they had collected and the others whose names they were also collecting who had been out in the park were responsible for this crime. and then there began this descent into a hell that kafka or dante could not themselves have imagined for these young men. some of them had been in the system before.

some of them had committed crimes that knew how to lawyer up and got up right -- out right away. those who would be called the central park five came from good, stable, middle class families. they had never been in trouble before. they had no idea what was going on as suddenly the questions shifted from we're going to let you go to your parents for this minor set of events to suddenly you are responsible for the brutal rape of this person. what takes place over the next 30 hours is one of the most horrific things that i believe has ever taken place in the american criminal justice system. these boys, children, two of them were 14, two of them were 15, and one of them was a developmentally challenged 16- year-old who admits in our film that he felt and probably accurately that he was 12 years old that night, the police began working on them. in one case,

up to 30 hours with a young boy without the benefit of a lawyer, often without their parents present. without food or water. telling them over and over again what they had done. that they had their fingerprints. at one point yusef salaam said he felt that they were so angry and screaming at him, spitting at him, blowing smoke in his face and so angry that they thought that they were going to take him out and kill him. they were petrified. their parents had experienced a sort of crimes of being black or brown in a large metropolitan city as they had grown up. many were immigrants or recent arrivals in the city. and they were petrified, too. did not know enough about their rights of miranda to stop the process at any time which would have ended it. and i would not be here had that happened.

i would not be here today if a parent had stepped in or a child had invoked his miranda rights to a lawyer. those that did, as i said got off with smaller sentences, pled to what they had actually done. but these five, strangely enough, the most innocent and unacceptably the most vulnerable within our criminal justice system, went through this extraordinary experience of being interrogated. it was kind of a circular firing squad. the cops would say we know -- we have your d.n.a. and your fingerprints on her pants and we know you didn't do it but the guy next door kevin is saying you're doing it and raymond is saying who's kevin? i've never met him before. we think, raymond, you're a good kid and didn't do it but he's saying you did it and if you say you saw him do it we're going to let you go. parents would come in and look after hours and hours and tell their sons just tell them what they want. they'll let you go home. each one of them, to a boy, said to us as men later on, all i want to do was go home and they would be dangled out the promise of being able to go home.

if they would only say this. so after several hours, 30 in the case of one of them, 16, 20, they suddenly had arrived at a place where the cops felt they had gotten the story right. what was clear is that they didn't know anything about the crime. they were nowhere near it. they would describe the crime happening in the reservoir and the cops would change, no, up near the lock. they did not know what was going on. they were petrified. and they began to piece together confessions. at that point, the district -- assistant district attorney, elizabeth lederer turned on a video machine and with the burly detectives who had done this good cop, bad cop interrogation standing with arms folded behind them began to record their confessions. in quotes. coerced confessions. within each of these confessions are glaring contradictions.

between these confessions, there are glaring contradictions. none of which attracted the attention to the seasoned professionals, new york's finest as they are called, who are responsible for finding the criminals in our society. and who in this case failed to entertain an alternative narrative that may have saved the lives of these five boys. but also actually the lives of other human beings. because they were so focused and so excited that the crime of the century as mayor ed koch called it had been solved within the first few hours and gone out to the celebrated watering hole of elaine and giving themselves high fives and raise a toast to each other that this crime of the century had been closed. what they didn't disclose to themselves was that two days before on april 17, 1989, a woman was assaulted and that assault was broken up by a man

who she described as having fresh stitches on his chin. a detective, a young detective was assigned to track down to the local hospitals who this person might have been. and by the end of the day or the next day they had his name. his name was matais reyes. nobody followed through. matais reyes committed the crime the next day, april 19, on the central park jogger. went on, while the cops and the prosecutors were focused on this horrible miscarriage of pinning it on the five. went on to rape and assault many other women that spring and summer including murdering a pregnant woman and her unborn fetus. he went on to rape and hurt many women. he was eventually caught not by the police, but by civilians who held him down until the police had come. many of the police who worked that case had been police who had worked over the central park

five. what happened as a district attorney's office was gathering evidence is that they found out that i'm seen a horrific, bloody crime scene. not a bit of that was on any of the five boys. and none of them on the crime scheme. they had extracted a single piece of dna. a semen sample that was the only link that link another human being to the crime scene besides the victim lying near death. they then proceeded to try to match samples with the five. they did not match. they did not at that time begin to entertain an alternative narrated -- narrative. they claimed acted in good faith during the 30 hours of interrogation of a 14-year-old saying, we just asked him what

happened. it took apparently 30 hours to get the story straight out of their mouths onto a videotaped confession. when mother burst into the interrogation room and refused to have a go on. he did not make a videotaped statement. but the other four did. one would expect this sort of moment in some other place of the united states in america. meanwhile, all hell is breaking loose in the united states of america. this is the crime of the century. this is our worst and basic fears of "the other.? -- wolfere both packs. packs. these were wilder's that became wilder. it is a phrase made up by the

police. they say how remorseless these five were. they took a coerced confession of an african-american who died. his obituary is still in the new york times. the press said, wait a minute. he was exonerated. that led to miranda. because of the firestorm of outrage, this moment led to the death penalty being reinstated. donald trump took out full-page ads in every one of the daily papers saying, bring back the death penalty. reputable, so-called reputable columnists said that the -- this is what he said -- ought to be hung in central park and the other four flogged.

liberal, this said, join the drumbeat. everyone accepted the verdict that they were guilty. what has happened to our society? what happened to our family structure rushed mark governor cuomo basically backed off and said, nobody is safe. even locking your doors is not safe. it was almost like he abandoned the city. they mocked the idea on the street alleged perpetrator. their mothers and grandmothers say they are good boys, but don't you believe them. and no one believed them. they immediately recanted their confessions and said it wasn't true i went on to try to assemble a defense. one had a public defender who

did an extraordinary job. the rest were ill-served by counsel. by the time this went to trial, they were guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty throughout the world. the trouble is affirmation of trial was ane tirlria affirmation of it. even then, there was no dna match. there was inconsistencies within the confessions. they divided it into three trials. one jury member held out for 10 days until he got so much from the other members that he decided he wanted to go home. just as the boys had done. they went to jail for up with the 13 years between seven and 13 years. these were men, children, boys, who were offered a chance at a plea deal and did not take it. if i was guilty of something, i would have tried to get the least a sentence. you can put me into jail for the rest of my life.

i would not confess to something i did not do. every time they were up for parole at these horrible institutions, one and two maximum-security prisons and the other four went to juvenile facilities that are not much better. in which a sex crime offenders are at and are vulnerable in ways no other prisoners are vulnerable. they all had parole hearings. it would have speeded up the exit from jill. they all attempted to get and several did get degrees before those programs were taken out of the prisons. it was an extraordinary display of willful advancement in the face of all of this. he said, all of the scuffling's and the jumping ons and the

stabbings, the trials, that speaks volumes. i think we know what scufflings are. we can only wonder what jumping on means. we know what stabbings are. we know what what trials and tribulations are. it went through it. finally they were released from jail except for corey who were serving an adult sentence. the ones who were out had to register as sex offenders. they could not get jobs. one went back to jail for drugs. korey wise was being released from jail, he bumped into another who had been caught that

same summer. they had got into an altercation over the use of a tv. now it is 2002. reyes apologizes to cory. after korey left, reyes went to the warden and said, i did time for a crime i committed. suddenly the case comes blowing uphill and the da comes up and takes a sample. it matches. the unknown a semen sample from before. he gives details of the case that no one knew, even the cops. they suddenly piece it all together. the district attorney who had overseen the original to --osecutors who were inbuilt. who wreerewere involved