NYC council member and Central Park Five exoneree says he was unjustifiably pulled over by police

New York City council member Yusef Salaam, a member of the exonerated Central Park Five, says he was unjustly pulled over by police while driving with his family in Harlem on Friday night.

Mr Salaam said in a statement that the NYPD officer refused to explain why he had been pulled over, and that he was backing out of a planned ride along with police and Mayor Eric Adams on Saturday night in protest.

“Last night, while driving with my wife and children and listening in to a call with my Council colleagues on speakerphone, I was pulled over by an NYPD officer in my beloved Village of Harlem within the 28th Precinct,” Mr Salaam said in a statement on Saturday 27 January.

“I introduced myself as Councilman Yusef Salaam, and subsequently asked the officer why I was pulled over. Instead of answering my question, the officer stated, ‘We’re done here,’ and proceeded to walk away.”

Mr Salaam spent nearly seven years in prison after being falsely convicted along with four other teenagers of the 1989 rape of a female jogger in Central Park, in a notorious miscarriage of justice depicted in the 2019 Netflix drama When They See Us.

New York City Council candidate Yusef Salaam said an NYPD officer refused to explain why he was pulled over

He was elected to the city council in November and appointed chair of the Committee on Public Safety which oversees the NYPD earlier this month.

Mr Salaam has been outspoken in his criticism of Mr Adams for vetoing  the “How Many Stops Act”, which would require NYPD officers to publicly report on all investigative stops, including low-level encounters with civilians.

He said his encounter with police illustrated why greater transparency around how the NYPD conducts police stops was needed.

“The