NEW YORK — Community activist and Exonerated Five member Yusef Salaam is running for State Senate, PIX11 confirmed Saturday.
Salaam was one of five teens — then referred to as the Central Park Five — wrongly convicted in the 1989 assault and rape of a jogger in Central Park. He served more than six years in juvenile detention before being released on parole. In 2002, each of the five had their convictions vacated.
He plans to run for the State Senate seat representing Harlem, East Harlem and the Upper West Side, which is being vacated by State Sen. Brian Benjamin, who was nominated to become New York’s lieutenant governor under Gov. Kathy Hochul.
According to the New York Daily News, Salaam’s platform includes “criminal justice and police reform, police brutality and the abolition of juvenile solitary confinement.”
PIX11’s Ayana Harry confirmed Salaam’s plans to run for the seat in Albany.
