User:Adjoajo/sarah

Sarah Burns was born in Walpole, New Hampshire. She is an author, educator, researcher, filmmaker, and director. She is a Ruth N. Halls Professor of Fine Arts at Indiana University. She is bests known for the book "The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding". She is also the co-producer and director for the documentary film Central Park Five. Which she co-produced and directed with David McMahon and Ken Burns.

Career
Sarah became award of the case of the Central Park Five while working on an undergraduate thesis. The topic of the thesis was racism in media coverage of the Central Park Five. In 2011, Sarah wrote the book “The Central Park Five: The Untold Story Behind One of New York City’s Most Infamous Crimes”. The film and the book re-examines the 1989 case of the Central Park Five, and the murder of Trisha Meili. She became known as the Central Park Jogger. The film premiered in 2012 at the Cannes Film Festival. Her work re-examines a miscarriage of justice in the wrongful convictions of five young black and Latino teenagers. They were accused of rape and the brutal beating of a white female jogger in Central Park, in New York City. Ed Koch. was the mayor of New York City at the time of the rape and brutal beating. He is quoted as describing the incident as “the crime of the century.”

Five teenager boys were arrested and charged with the assault of Trisha Meili. There were confessions, but latter on the teenagers documented how they were coerced into confessing for a crime that they did not commit. The confessions came after hours of psychological pressure and aggressive interrogation by New York City homicide detectives. Four of the teenagers were African Americans, and one Latino. Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Korey Wise, and Raymond Santana Jr., became the Central Park Five. They were 14, 15, and 16 at the time. They were tried as adults and served from 7 to 13 years in prison. They were exonerated in 2002, when Matias Reyes, a serial rapist confessed to the crime. A DNA analysis linked Reyes to the crime, and that he acted alone. The confession by Reyes acted alone signified that the attack on the jogger in Central Park was not a gang rape.

At the Donald Trump took out ads in several newspapers calling for the death penalty of the five teenagers. They were 14, 15, and 16 years of age. In the interview with CNN's Larry King he asks Donald Trump if he was prejudging.

The boys-to-men were released from prison, and in 2003 sued the City of New York. In 2012 they settled, and were awarded $41 million for wrongful conviction. The men known as the Central Park Five will now get their $41million from the city for their wrongful convictions. They boys-to-men were not able to get compensation while Mayor Michael Bloomberg was mayor of New York City. seemed determined that the boys-to-men, wrongfully convicted and then exonerated, would get no compensation under his watch.

In 2016 - Sarah produced and directed along with David McMahon and Ken Burns, a two part, four hour series titled Jackie Robinson (film)

Awards & Nominations

 * 2012 - Best Non-Fiction film of 2012 by the New York Film Critics Circle
 * 2013 - Peabody Award, Alliance of Women Film Journalists

Awards for Documentary Central Park Five

 * Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Film Industry (Sarah Burn)
 * Black Film Critics Circle Awards - Best Documentary, (Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David MacMahon)
 * Black Reel Awards - Black Reel Award for Outstanding Documentary (Sarah Burns, Ken Burns, David McMahon)
 * Critics Choice Award - Best Documentary Feature; (Sarah Burns, Ken Burns, David McMahon)
 * Chicago Film Critics Association Award; Best Documentary (Sarah Burns, Ken Burns, David McMahon)
 * Chicago International Film Festival; Audience Choice Award - Best Documentary Feature (Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon)

Quotes
On the "Central Park Five"

"Part of our goal is simply to inform people what happened in this case. But we also want people to think about how it happened".

"It goes back to those issues we've been wrestling with in this country for centuries in terms of how we look at and see minorities, particularly African-Americans, because of the history of slavery".

"That means talking about false confessions, about the failure of all the institutions in the city to protect these kids, and particularly how the media failed to apply any journalistic skepticism to the story the police gave them".

"And of course, the underlying prejudice that made it all too easy for many to believe that they were guilty." Sarah Burns