.
June 27th, 2014
10:59 PM ET

Member of the wrongfully convicted "Central Park Five": "There's an indelible scar that was placed on us"

As part of a day which saw the City of New York approve a $40 million civil rights settlement, on Friday evening "Anderson Cooper 360" welcomed two of the men who will benefit from the ruling.

But despite forthcoming funds, Raymond Santana and Yusef Salaam are still struggling to trust the notion that their days of being falsely tied to a 1989 beating and rape are over.

"I felt like someway, somehow the city was going to just pull this rug from under our feet, and say 'Oops. Sorry,'" said Santana, one of the members of the "Central Park Five," a group of youths wrongfully convicted and imprisoned a quarter century ago. "It still hasn't sunk in that this is finally over."

For Salaam, no ruling, settlement, or amount of money can repair reputations that remain forever ruined:

"There's an indelible scar that was placed on us, and that scar hasn't been removed just because we've come to this point."

Click the above video for more of Anderson Cooper's interview with two members of the infamous "Central Park Five," a group of minority teens ostracized by their community, and placed behind bars for a crime they didn't commit.

Post by:
Filed under: Central Park Five
soundoff (No Responses)

Post a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.