Ultimately, the hysteria surrounding the Central Park Jogger case gave rise to new language about black-youth crime, and to new laws that caused more children to stand trial as adults than at any other time in American history. When They See Us gets the audience closer to understanding why juvenile and adult prison populations exploded through the 1990s, and how the United States became home to the largest incarceration system in the world.

The series begins on the morning of April 19, introducing viewers to the five teenagers as they navigated an ordinary day in their Harlem neighborhood. McCray (played by Caleel Harris), a rising Little League star, discussed the Yankees with his father (Michael K. Williams). Richardson (Asante Blackk), a trumpet player, anticipated being named first chair as he walked home from school with his older sister. Meanwhile, Santana (Marquis Rodriguez) and Wise (Jharrel Jerome) seemed primarily occupied with impressing girls, as Salaam (Ethan Herisse) avoided a bully. By nighttime, the boys had entered Central Park together, along with 25 to 35 others—some of whom began throwing rocks at cars, harassing passersby, and beating up homeless people. When the police arrived, the crowd scattered. The officers managed to catch five boys during the chase, including Richardson and Santana, who were taken to the Central Park station for questioning.

Initially, the police prepared to charge the kids with unlawful assembly and refer them to the children’s court system. But New York District Attorney Linda Fairstein (Felicity Huffman) and investigators quickly concluded that the boys instead were Meili’s attackers and built a case around them, rather than conducting a full investigation. “Every young black male who was in the park last night is a suspect in the rape of that woman who is fighting for her life,” Huffman’s Fairstein says to NYPD officers. She called for the deployment of an “army of blue up on Harlem” and encouraged police to “stop every little thug you see.”

The police, investigators, and the press dubbed the boys’ actions in the park that night “wilding.” Two days after the remaining three suspects had been arrested, the New York Post portrayed “wilding” as “packs of bloodthirsty teens from the tenements, bursting with boredom and rage, roam[ing] the streets getting kicks from an evening of ultra-violence.” Soon the term became part of the national discourse, with the newscaster Tom Brokaw describing “wilding” as “rampaging in wolf packs and attacking people just for the fun of it” on NBC Nightly News. Peter Jennings of ABC named it “terror,” plain and simple.

The concept of “wilding” and the racist assumptions behind it made it seem plausible to law-enforcement authorities and the public that black and brown boys’ mischief could easily turn into violent rape. In When They See Us, viewers hear excerpts from the New York Post columnist Pete Hamill’s April 23 account. “They were coming downtown from a world of crack, welfare, guns, knives, indifference, and ignorance,” Hamill wrote, “and driven by a collective fury, brimming with the rippling energies of youth … they had only one goal: to smash, hurt, rob, stomp, rape.” For Hamill, “wilding” was an expression of class and racial hatred. “The enemies were rich. The enemies were white.” The implication was that “wilding” would destroy affluent, white New York if young black and brown boys and men were not severely punished. DuVernay reminds her audience that Donald Trump purchased $85,000 ads in New York City newspapers that screamed “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!”