In 1989, five teenagers from Harlem were accused of raping and beating a woman in New York’s Central Park, and though they confessed, they withdrew their confessions almost immediately and said they had been coerced by overzealous police officers. Unfortunately, the city—particularly the son of a racist real estate mogul who was just establishing his own penchant for idiocy—demanded “justice,” and the five teenagers were quickly convicted. While all five were finally exonerated in 2014, the attitudes and biases that got them locked up in the first place are still around, not to mention the fact that the aforementioned son of a racist real estate mogul is now the president.
The story is just as relevant as ever, so filmmaker Ava DuVernay has announced that she’s developing a limited series about the Central Park Five for Netflix. This comes from Variety, and it sounds like each installment of the five-part series will focus on a different one of the five men, charting their life from the forced confession in 1989 to getting released from prison in 2014. DuVernay previously directed the documentary 13th for Netflix, which also dealt with racism and general corruption within the justice system.