It had been a long, 12-hour day at the Wall Street investment bank Salomon Brothers. For Trisha Meili, her position as vice president in the bank’s corporate finance department and energy group often resulted in long days.
Trisha was only 28 years old, which is young for a bank vice president, but she came to the bank with an impressive educational background. She was a Phi Beta Kappa economics major at Wellesley College. She earned an M.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. in finance from the Yale School of Management.
Running was part of Trisha’s daily routine, so after her 12-hour workday, she decided to go jogging in Central Park. An article in Refinery29.com describes what happened next:
Hours later, two men found Meili naked, bound, and gagged in a ravine in the 102nd Street Transverse, a wooded area in the northern section of the park. Meili had been severely beaten. Her eye socket was crushed, and she had skull fractures. Doctors at the Metropolitan Hospital didn’t expect her to survive and told her family that if she awoke, she would be a vegetable.
Miraculously, after 12 days in a coma, Meili woke up. She did not remember anything from the attack.
Doing the wild thing
Trisha Meili was not the only one victimized that night in Central Park. Several acts of violence were perpetrated by a group of over 30 teenagers. Wikipedia lists the following victims:
Michael Vigna, a competitive bike rider hassled about 9:05 p.m. by the group, one of whom tried to punch him.
Antonio Diaz, a 52-year-old man walking in the park near 105th Street, was knocked to the ground by teenagers at about 9:15 p.m., who stole his bag of food and bottle of beer. He was left unconscious but soon found by a policeman.
Gerald Malone and Patricia Dean, riding on a tandem bike, were attacked on East Drive south of 102nd Street at about 9:15 p.m. by boys who tried to stop them and grab Dean; the couple called police after reaching a call box.
The remaining victims were attacked by members of the large group while jogging near the reservoir:
David Lewis, a banker, attacked and robbed about 9:25–9:40 p.m.
Robert Garner, attacked about 9:30 p.m.
David Good, attacked about 9:47 p.m.
John Loughlin, the 40-year-old teacher, severely beaten and kicked about 9:40–9:50 p.m. near the reservoir and left unconscious. He was also robbed of a Walkman and other items.
The police were called and over 20 teenagers were rounded up that night. Police described the random attacks in the park as “wilding,” from a suspect’s use of the saying, “doing the wild thing,” which was inspired by lyrics from rapper Tone Loc’s hit song “Wild Thing.”
So fixed were the emotions
In 1989, when these events took place, there was rising crime in New York City. The violent assault on Trisha Meili provoked tremendous community outrage.
He who perpetrates an outrage may well be quick to forget what he has done. But they who have suffered at his hands are justified at least in remembering the wrongs he has done them.― Marquis de Sade, The Crimes of Love
No doubt, there was great pressure on law enforcement to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators. Eventually, five young men were arrested and charged with Trisha’s attack: Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise. They became known as “The Central Park Five.”
Prosecution in the rape and assault case, according to Wikipedia:
…was based primarily on confessions which they had made after lengthy police interrogations. None of the defendants had legal counsel during questioning. Many consider the interrogation techniques to have been coercive and they have been subject to wide criticism. Within weeks, they each withdrew their confessions, pleaded not guilty, and refused plea deals on the rape and assault charges. None of the suspects’ DNA matched the DNA collected from the crime scene: two semen samples that both belonged to one unidentified man. No substantive physical evidence connected any of the five teenagers to the rape scene, but each was convicted in 1990 of related assault and other charges.
The five teenagers were imprisoned in 1990. They were not exonerated until 12 years later when the DNA of serial murderer and rapist Matias Reyes matched the attack and he confessed to the crime.
In a 1991 New York Review of Books piece, author Joan Didion opined:
So fixed were the emotions provoked by this case that the idea that there could have been, for even one juror, even a moment’s doubt in the state’s case… seemed, to many in the city, bewildering, almost unthinkable: the attack on the jogger had by then passed into narrative, and the narrative was … about what was wrong with the city and about its solution.
In 2014, the Central Park Five settled a civil lawsuit case with Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York City for around $41 million.
Things that fit your conclusions
The shocking attack on the central park jogger inspired a 2012 documentary, The Central Park Five, and a 2019 miniseries When They See Us. These films led to conversations about systemic racism, improper police investigation, the unreliability of confessions, criminal justice reform, and more.
The actions of human beings are motivated by many things. How they are raised, personal biases, maturity, mood, the need for approval, money, power, success, pleasure, and more.
It’s human nature to make the complex manageable and determine things that fit your conclusions. That’s bias. — Richard Burr
Every day we must make decisions and judgment calls. The problem is that we are often blinded by the many things listed above (bias, ego, money, power, etc.).
For example, the pressure on the New York City police detectives to arrest and convict Trisha Meili’s attacker may have led them to draw false conclusions and employ inappropriate interrogations. Perhaps systemic racism played a part. It’s hard to know the motivations of others.
Think about your own life. The times you made a bad decision because of personal biases, blind spots, impatience, ego, etc. How can you improve your decision-making and judgment calls?
Three simple words can help. Learn to put these three words into a question, and they will likely improve all aspects of your life.
What are the three words?
Is it true?
But he hasn’t got anything on!
Many people have read Han’s Christian Andersen’s children’s book, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” published in 1837. It’s the story about an emperor who was sold a magnificent set of clothes by two swindlers.
The swindlers tell the Emperor and his staff that they possess cloth so fine and delicate, it is almost invisible. Only worthy people, the swindlers claim, can see the cloth.
The Emperor pays the swindlers handsomely, and finally, the day comes when they present the Emperor his new outfit (to be worn publicly in a procession). The Emperor and his courtiers pretend they can see the fabric because they have pride and want to be worthy.
As the Emperor’s procession makes its way through town, the people all gather and they too pretend to see the King’s magical outfit. But then a small, innocent child points at the Emperor and says, “But he hasn’t got anything on!”
Realizing the truth of the child’s statement, the townspeople chime in and say, “But he hasn’t got anything on!”
The moral of the story is to not let fear or pride prevent you from seeing the truth. Learn to ask yourself, “Is it true?”
Unfortunately, this is sometimes easier said than done.
To see things as they are
We hold onto our egos, biases, and opinions much like a soldier embraces a battle plan. When the enemy attacks, the soldier counters. Similarly, we counter when someone “attacks” our views or opinions.
According to Julia Galef, author of “The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t,” we should behave more like scouts than soldiers.
A review of Galef’s book in the Wall Street Journal notes that:
…the soldier mindset leads us to defend our beliefs against outside threats, seek out evidence to support our beliefs, ignore or rationalize away counter-evidence and resist admitting we’re wrong — as that feels like defeat. The scout mindset, by contrast, seeks to discover what is true through evidence, and reasons toward conclusions that lead to a more accurate map of reality — ‘the motivation to see things as they are,’ Ms.Galef explains, ‘not as you wish they were.
If only today’s politicians and strident voices on the right and left would adopt the scout mindset over the soldier mindset. What would our world look like if people set aside their egos, pride, and biases?
What would your world look like if you embraced the scout mindset and approached problems and judgment calls with the question, “Is it true?”
Searching for the truth is not always comfortable. The answers may challenge your biases and beliefs. But they’ll also prevent you from making mistakes.
Who wants to be a naked Emperor, embarrassed and ridiculed because of pride and ego? Learn to become a scout instead of a soldier. Always ask yourself “Is it true?” Do these things, and you might find your life improving in ways unimagined.
Before you go
I’m John P. Weiss, an artist, writer, and photographer. To get my latest work, sign up for my free Saturday Newsletter here.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Illustration by John P. Weiss