If Blacks Had Rampaged

This claim by the President of the United States of America should be, as the fact-checkers would put it, "mostly true."

Ugly race-baiting, hate-mongering fantasy https://t.co/4zceW1HtJU

— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) May 30, 2024

What do you think he would have done on January 6 if black Americans had stormed- think about this. What do you think would have happened if black Americans had stormed the Capitol? Think about it. This is what would have happened if black Americans had stormed the Capitol. I don't think he would be talking about pardons. This is the same guy who wanted to tear gas you as you peacefully protested George Floyd's murder. The same guy who still calls the Central Park Five....

Oh, yes, the Central Park Five- four juveniles and one adult, blacks and Latinos.  On April 19, 1989 investment banker and jogger Trisha Meili was found in Manhattan's Central Park, having been brutally beaten and raped while jogging there. Police arrested a group comprised of Antra McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise. 

The case drew national attention while Donald Trump's

ad, which ran in local papers less than two weeks after the incident, played a key role in shaping public opinion about the case.

His open letter mourned how New York families of all races “have had to give up the pleasure of a leisurely stroll in the Park at Dusk” because of “roving thousands of wild criminals.” He argued that politicians were overly concerned with public outcry about police brutality — such as the fatal shooting of a disabled elderly black woman by a NYPD officer in the mid-1980s — to the point that they weren’t letting the “neighborhood cop” do his job of protecting the community, creating a “reckless and dangerously permissive atmosphere which allows criminals of every age to beat and rape a helpless woman.” He said “these muggers and murderers…should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.”

 Michael Warren, a member of the Central Park Five legal team, argued in The Guardian in 2016 that Trump "poisoned the minds of many people who lived in New York and who, rightfully, had a natural affinity for the victim"...

While four had given video confessions, they later said those had been coerced and all maintained their innocence. (Studies have shown that false confessions are a particular problem with young suspects.) There were also notable inconsistencies in their statements and other eyewitness accounts.

Still, two juries convicted the five in 1990. They served prison sentences ranging from six years to 13 years.

On Dec. 19. 2002, the convictions of the five men were vacated after a man named Matias Reyes, whose DNA matched evidence from the crime, confessed to having been responsible.

Although Reyes knew details of the crime, for which the statute of limitations had run out, which nobody but the perpetrator would have 

The police department has said it still believes the men were involved in some way and the victim, Meili, has said that she wishes the case had gone back to court because she still believes more than one person was responsible, but the city settled with the five in 2014, giving each roughly $1 million for each year spent behind bars.

President Biden stated that Trump "wanted to tear gas you as you peacefully protested George Floyd's murder." When in June, 2020 President Trump marched through Lafayette Square to St. John's Episcopal Church in order to hold a Bible upside down and demonstrate his godliness, police- as Trump later would assert- did not use pepper spray. However, black lives matter protestors protestors were treated to a barrage of smoke canisters and pepper balls, which also are classified as "riot control agents."

So, mostly true. If a crowd of black Americans had stormed the Capitol on Trump's behalf on January 6, 2021, their race would not have prevented Trump for calling for pardons for the insurrectionists. If that nearly unbelievable event had taken place, he would have called for their pardon and accused the government of racism and Ku Klux Klan tactics. However, if a group had stormed the Capitol in opposition to a President Trump- at least a little more likely- he would have called for mass arrest, probably deportation, and possibly execution.

Just ask the Central Park Five.

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