all: ♪ Happy birthday, dear Kalief ♪
- Hi - Hey, how yng doi?
- Good evening. - Good evening.
- Um, today is May 15, 2010.
The time is now about 7:47 in the evening.
- I just needed to get my story out.
- And you are Mr. Kalief Browder.
Is that correct? - Yes.
I was just going home from a party.
- 911 operator 1719, what's the emergency?
There was a guy saying that I had robbed him.
[indistinct police radio chatter]
They said, "We're gonna take you to the precinct."
- Did you rob somebody
in the beginning part of May, Mr. Crowder?
- No. No.
- The time is now 10 to 8:00.
This interview is concluded.
- They said, "Most likely, we're gonna let you go home."
- Rikers...
- One of the most violent jails in the country.
- All right, all right! - Look what he's doing!
- Stop! We missed it!
- But then... [buzzer blares]
- The [bleep] is wrong with you, man?
- Time-out. - I never went home.
- Kalief was my son.
I know what he went through.
[buzzer blares]
I went through a lot with him.
- I felt like I was done wrong.
I felt like something needed to be done about this.
[indistinct yelling]
If I just say that I did it,
nothing's gonna be done about it.
I didn't do it. No justice is served.
Nobody hears nothing at all. I had to fight.
[dramatic music]
You want me to walk away like it's okay?
It's not okay.
♪ ♪
I lost my childhood.
I lost my happiness.
- They destroyed my life, my family's life.
- What's his name? all: Kalief Browder!
- 911 emergency. - Oh, my God!
- Ma'am? - This is supposed to be
the greatest city in the world.
And we are supposed to trust in this justice system.
Where's the justice?
♪ ♪
- Let's do it again.
All right, tell me when this gets annoying,
and I'll stop. - [laughs]
- Sorry.
- Yeah. [chuckles] It's all right.
- Thank you.
- I don't know I'm just nervous. I don't know.
- How many times did I start over, right?
I kept doing that, too. I was like, "Wait, time-out.
I got to say it again." - [laughs]
- He broke records. I'm kidding.
- All right, um...
In order--
I'm sorry, hold on.
I'll just let them go by. It's just personal for me.
- Yeah.
- In jail as a 16-year-old high-school sophomore,
now more than three years later, this young man is free.
- He may be physically free-- - Criminal charges--
- Kalief Browder... - Kalief Browder...
- Was arrested at 16... - For stealing a backpack.
- A backpack. - Backpack.
- In jail on Rikers... - Solitary...
- Solitary confinement. - Torture.
- Torture.
- He did three years on Rikers Island,
trapped there, without having been convicted of a crime.
- This video was obtained by the "New Yorker Magazine."
- It caused a lot of people to act.
- President Obama banned
solitary confinement for juveniles.
Obama cites Kalief Browder in New York City.
- Republican Senator Rand Paul mentioned his name.
- How are you? - Rosie O'Donnell
had him on "The View." - You are really a hero.
[applause]
- And Jay Z met him...
took a picture with him.
- Kalief moved so many people.
I just felt compelled to meet with him.
I believe our prophets come
in many shapes and forms.
Sometimes our prophets come in the form of young,
undeveloped energy that will teach all us grown-ups
how to love better and have more compassion,
and Kalief Browder was a prophet.
♪ ♪
- Now, more than three years later,
this young man is free--
criminal charges completely dropped.
- You know, I just came home.
- Good morning to you. Here's what we've got, guys.
Delays all the way back to the Bruckner Interchange.
We got a couple of other incidents in the Bronx
that we're gonna be looking at as well.
- When I was 16, I mean, I liked to play sports.
[crowd cheering]
- Yankees win! The Yankees win!
- I used to like to go to the park.
- Rare sister cubs are at the Bronx Zoo,
the Malayan tiger--
- I used to like to go to parties.
- We're in the South Bronx, Hip-Hop Boulevard.
It's an honor to the place that created hip-hop
on August 11, 1973.
- I can't even have fun right now.
Coming home, I was very discouraged,
and sometimes I'm still discouraged.
I don't even think I can make it like these guys out here.
I see businessmen and businesswomen
dressed in suits.
I want to be like them, you know?
That's my-- that's just me.
I want to be successful like them.
Everything is just straight work and school
and catching up on my life.
Like, right now as we speak, I just--
from the stuff that I've been through prior,
I just feel like I have a lot of just demons walking with me,
and it's not from anything I did,
but just stuff that I've seen and been through,
and it's like-- it just won't leave me.
[shouting]
I can't go to sleep at night, you know,
and every time I get time to myself,
I think about those things, and it just stresses me out.
[airplane passing overhead]
- Physically, he'll be right in front of you.
Mentally, he's not there.
And, you know, I'm his mom.
I could see when there's a difference, and he just--
It's like he's in and out.
This is how he releases his anger.
And when he thinks about Rikers, he gets really upset.
The city knows what they've done.
I'm just waiting for the day Kalief gets justice.
- When Kalief came home, we went to 11 different attorneys,
11 different attorneys that turned him down right away,
said he had no case.
This wasn't about getting him money.
It was about getting him justice.
- You know what? You mess with these kids
who are in jail to try to compel a plea
and ask for these bull[bleep], illusory adjournments, whatever.
I know that. I was a DA. I did the same thing.
- Paul had no doubt about the fact that he had a case.
- So, basically, my whole argument is,
this is an issue of the city of New York.
- 911 Operator, 1719, what's the emergency?
- All they had to do in this case
was bring one victim forward.
And the thing about this victim was,
he had given different statements
in the police paperwork about when this robbery
actually happened. - 2:40 a.m.?
- Yes. - I was home.
- You were home, definitely? - I had to have been home.
- Um...
- The DA wasn't ready for trial.
They didn't have a witness. The DA was on vacation.
The DA's on another trial.
It was excuse after excuse after excuse.
[buzzer blares] He was in solitary
as a teenager for 14 months in a row.
They just kept him there.
It was torture.
To me, it just underscored
the injustice in our system.
[elevator bell dings]
It was a long, slow process.
Finally, the attorney for the city
scheduled the first deposition.
- Stand clear of the closing doors, please.
- I explained to Kalief,
"Look, deposition's an examination under oath.
It's gonna be a lot of questions."
He was nervous. He wasn't sure what to expect.
- Good morning, Mr. Browder.
- If you've never been in a deposition,
Pray to God, "Thank you," and hope you never have to be.
A deposition is this chess match
between you and an opponent,
that is the most mentally stressful thing.
You are under oath.
- Tell me about Rikers.
- The correction officer slapped me on the floor.
Every chance he got, he slammed my face into the wall.
He used to starve me for days.
I remember their faces.
- You know, we want to make sure
this information's accurate.
- A deposition is not about addressing
the issues that you raised.
It's to discredit and destroy you if they can.
- Have you ever heard of Children's Services?
Were you ever screened of mental-health issues?
What is going on with your mom?
Kindergarten, detention, smoking marijuana--
Are you affiliated with any gang?
- It's a farce to believe
that when you sit someone at a deposition
that you want the truth.
You don't want the truth.
- I think the truth is messy...
because if he's right, you got to look at the police.
- The 48th Precinct.
- You got to look at the prosecutor.
- The Bronx DA's office is refusing to say--
- Got to look at the court.
- Hundreds waiting to see a judge...
- You got to look at this jail system.
- In jail on Rikers Island...
- You got to look at solitary confinement.
- Human rights groups consider it torture.
♪ ♪
- He's got to be wrong.
Otherwise, what the [bleep] are we doing?
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- In May of 2010, 16-year-old Kalief Browder
was walking home from a party in the Bronx
when he was stopped by the police
for allegedly stealing a backpack.
- I'm gonna advise you of your rights, okay? Yes?
- All right.
- Uh, you have the right to remain silent
and refuse to answer any questions.
Do you understand? - Yes.
- With his family unable to make bail,
he was hauled off to one of the toughest jails in the country--
Rikers Island. [shouting]
- Stop resisting!
- He would spend the next three years there,
locked up for a crime he never committed.
Kalief and his attorney Paul Prestia
are here right now, demanding answers.
We hear of people wrongfully arrested.
We hear of people waiting too long to get sentenced.
We hear of people with exorbitant bails,
We hear about people who are abused by correctional officers.
But it's rare to hear of all of them happening to one person.
Right now, America is watching you.
People are listening to you.
If you had one message to tell the country,
what would it be?
- I feel like the whole point of me being on this show
is just to get my story out there,
because I feel like this happens every day.
This happens every day, and I feel like it's got to stop.
- What can be done to at least hold somebody--
somebody accountable for what's happened?
- We filed the lawsuit in Supreme Court, Bronx County,
for the wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution--
From that interview, he gets love and support
from, like, people around the country,
and he's like, "Wow, people really care about, like,
what happened to me."
And when he's in the deposition speaking about it,
it's not love.
It's suspicion...
and doubt.
- Mr. Browder, I have to ask you a number of questions
with regard to your claim.
What is your address?
- 2124 Prospect Avenue,
Bronx, New York, 10457.
[car horn honking]
- The Bronx is really an epicenter of poverty
in New York City.
- This congressional district
was one of the poorest in the nation.
- Poor folks and folks of color born into ghettoization,
in Child Protective Services, in failing schools--
they are "the others"
we allow to exist just on the periphery
of our own imagination.
We're going to have to learn to care about them.
- How long have you lived there?
- My whole life.
- And your address is 2124 Prospect Avenue?
- Yes.
- That's a private house? - Private house.
- Do you rent or own that house?
- I actually stay with my mother.
- What is your mother's name?
- Venida.
- How old is she?
- She's probably about 50.
- Mm.
Oh, gosh.
- Let's go through your brothers and sisters.
What's your brother's name? - Kamal.
- He was fun, energetic, annoying.
He was always determined...
trying to get all the right pieces together.
- Your next brother? - Deion Browder.
- He'll burst my door open,
say, "Hey what are you doing today?"
He had so much to say. He would not stop.
And you would just sit there like, "Okay..."
- What about your sister? What is her name?
- Nicole. - He had the dumbest laugh.
[imitating laughter] "Get away from me."
You know constantly, the laugh.
- What about your other two brothers?
- Other two brothers-- Akeem...
- He was my workout partner. [chuckles]
Like, he had a eight-pack, like, when he was a baby.
Kind of jealous about that. [laughs]
- What about the last brother? - Raheem.
- He would try to play basketball
with me and my friends.
I don't know what he thought he was doing,
but it wasn't playing basketball.
[laughs]
- Who are your friends that come over?
- Tyrone, David.
- Me and Kalief were neighbors for years, since diapers.
We used to throw snowballs at cars
and then just start running.
My stoop, be his stoop,
Tyrone's is all the way to the left.
- Everybody called us on the block
the Three Musketeers.
- We would play video games, play sports.
- We used to play a lot of football, tackle on the street,
in the front--on concrete.
Just not caring, throwing each other at cars.
Like, just like regular kids, you know?
- Kalief was a goofball. Like, he told all the jokes.
- Kalief named me Jewish Boy as my nickname,
'cause when I would get a lot of hair, it would curl.
And I'm the only white person on the block,
so they called me Jewish Boy for that, too.
It's so weird. [laughs]
He always made people laugh.
He was a funny kid, had a good heart, too.
- Once, Kalief and Ty wanted to go to the beach
with me and my friend,
and we didn't want to go
'cause we were more self-conscious,
and he said, "There's nothing to be ashamed of.
You're beautiful."
And that touched me.
For him to say that really gave me confidence.
[voice breaking] He was a really good friend.
Sorry.
- I'm not the same anymore.
I'm happy I'm home, but should I really be happy?
Because I shouldn't have been there.
It's crazy because I don't fit in anymore.
Before, I fit in.
- This is not about truth.
This is not about justice.
This is about you getting put in a corner,
so when you walk out of that room,
you have no case.
They thought it up for weeks,
and you are now the mouse in the mousetrap.
- When did you find out you were adopted?
[dramatic music]
- Kalief was just like, "What?"
- Were you a foster child of your mom and dad
before you were adopted?
- I don't know.
♪ ♪
- Throughout the time of my being a foster parent,
which was 15 years, I had about 30 kids.
♪ ♪
You're on call 24 hours, and sometimes
I would get a call, like, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning,
and it was rough.
- I'm afraid we have an epidemic on every level.
- Despite all the warnings, a growing number of babies
are being born already addicted to cocaine.
- If the child is born drug-addicted,
the mother never gets that child.
- It didn't matter how much you used,
what you used,
you were gonna be separated from your kids.
♪ ♪
- Kalief was born into Child Protective Services
because his mother having been a crack addict
and never receiving the kind of treatment that she needed
and instead being criminalized.
The War on Drugs led to really tragic consequences.
People's families were being torn apart.
People's futures were being erased.
- I love you.
- It's a mistake to look at Kalief's story
just as a snapshot.
Here is a young man who was raised in this system...
Swept, then, into a criminal justice system...
[shouting, buzzer blares]
A system that failed him every step of the way.
[dramatic music]
- During the deposition, there were some difficult moments.
I felt like the attorney
was very aggressive towards him.
It just felt like it was too much.
- Were you suspended at all in middle school?
- Kalief is somebody who's been under, essentially,
state surveillance their entire life.
The kid's a foster-care kid.
They've got every report.
They've got every altercation in school.
- We are now in the tenth grade.
Do you recall any of your teachers from the tenth grade?
- One of them was Miss Charlene.
- I do remember Browder very vividly.
Usually, he didn't go to other classes except mine.
I taught him tenth-grade global history.
He came at his leisure, did not take notes,
did not have a notebook, did not have a pencil.
He carried a book bag.
Now, was there any books in the bag?
I don't think so.
Maybe I let Browder do these things
because I didn't see anything really bad in him.
And I think he liked the attention that I gave him.
I know how hard it is.
Their homes are not good.
They don't feel anyone loves them.
But they came up that way.
So by the time they get to high school,
they're already conditioned.
- This is not statistics.
This is not an issue. This is not a cause.
This is human beings. This is kids.
But these kids in urban America
don't have the right to be human.
- When did you find out you were adopted?
- I believe I was 12 or 13 years old.
- Somebody in the family told him.
Kalief just kept saying, "It's not right, man.
It's not right. It's not right."
- Were you getting into trouble at home?
- He was lost. He was, like, lost.
He needed, like, his father.
- What's your dad's name? - Everett Browder.
- How often do you see your dad?
- Not often, because we haven't been talking too much.
- My dad left home.
He didn't leave on good terms with anybody.
- My mom would be downstairs crying, upset,
and all the kids see this.
- Kalief was really hurt by the situation.
- 'Cause after he left, Kalief switched quick.
♪ ♪
- [barks]
- Kalief, he started coming outside when he was 11, 12.
- Seemed like he was looking for friends, and then he was lost.
- And I was like, "You know, you shouldn't
be around these people," and this and that.
He didn't want to listen.
- You feel like you do need a family.
You're by yourself out there.
You need people that share
those same experiences with you.
So you're sitting next to the guy, like,
"Yeah, my dad left, too. [bleep] him. I hate him."
You're actually letting those feelings out,
not in a way that's evolved.
- He found that family that was like,
"We're gonna be there for you. We will defend you.
We will help you."
- How is your relationship to Shamel Peterson?
- He was from the neighborhood.
- I wasn't in school at that time.
He used to tell me to come pick him up,
then have a bunch of dudes with us, chillin', parlaying,
like, regular.
[laughs]
Smoke marijuana here and there, you know what I'm saying?
Probably drink some, you know what I'm saying?
Like, doing regular kid things, having fun.
- Shimmy came along.
I didn't hang out with him too much.
It's like, you know how trouble comes
looking for you sometimes?
It was like that with him.
- You leave your kids vulnerable in the streets,
and, you know, they're bound to do criminal activity.
- Increasingly, the police are being tasked
with more and more of society's heavy lifting.
It used to be teachers and community centers.
Now it's the cops.
And so the net is getting bigger.
The catch-bin zone is getting bigger.
- You had a prior incident. Is that correct?
- Yes. - What was that arrest for?
- They said I was driving a bakery truck.
- When I found out what he was arrested for,
I couldn't believe it.
Joyriding in a bread truck?
You know, and then the cops started making jokes,
"What's the matter? He was hungry."
- I think it was more on the lines of peer pressure,
'cause the crowd that he hung out with at the time
really had a big influence on him.
- I guess you would say I was being a follower.
- What do you mean you were being a follower?
- Did he have to steal a bakery truck?
No, he didn't.
But as a kid, you don't think about things like that.
You make silly mistakes.
- New York is one of only two states
in the entire country that sets the age
of criminal responsibility at 16.
- Kids get arrested on a charge.
They're offered probation. They take it.
They don't realize how serious it is.
- Now you're kind of tagged as a problem,
and every police encounter you have after that,
you'll be viewed as that kid who has a record,
whether you've even been convicted or not.
♪ ♪
- I remember that night he wanted to have fun
and go out to a party.
- We went to one of his friend's parties.
♪ ♪
2:00-something in the morning.
We walking, we talking about our night.
We was the only ones out there.
[siren wails]
[indistinct police radio chatter]
- There was a guy in a police car
saying that we robbed him two weeks ago.
The police officer, he told me and my friend--
he said, "Oh, don't worry about it.
"We're just gonna take you to the precinct,
"and we're gonna see if he filed a police report,
and most likely we're gonna let you go."
- Good evening. - Good evening.
- Um, today is May 15, 2010.
The time is now about 7:47 in the evening.
- It's sad that these seconds
changed this man's life forever.
[indistinct police radio chatter]
- Now, Mr. Browder, where were you when you got arrested?
- On Arthur Avenue. [siren wails]
[indistinct police radio chatter]
- I remember getting the phone call
saying that he was arrested.
And it terrified me.
They told me Kalief robbed this person of a backpack,
and it had a camera, $700,
a credit card, and an iPod.
I was in such a state, I don't even remember
if I went to the station,
'cause once I start crying, I don't remember much.
- When I found out, I was pissed,
'cause I didn't know he got arrested
until, like, the next afternoon when I came after work.
I didn't think it was gonna escalate
to be anything, like, serious.
- I'm like, "Oh, they ain't got no evidence."
Like, they normally just pull people off the streets,
I'm thinking it's probably a lineup,
he's gonna be out within a few hours.
- We all went down to the precinct
to see if, you know, he can come back home.
They weren't letting him go.
- To be honest, I thought it was just
a routine stop-and-frisk.
- Stop-and-frisk--
police officers stop people on the streets.
They would pat them down whether there was evidence
they were committing a crime or not.
- Stop-and-frisk, which worked very well in New York--
- It was first aggressively used there
under Rudy Giuliani, who was the mayor at the time.
- On the black side, you've got to teach your children
to be respectful to the police.
- [screams] - You must submit yourselves
to unjustifiable stops,
disrespectful encounters with police officers,
They will go and stop people,
regardless if there is a reason or not.
- I didn't do nothing wrong!
- Stop-and-frisk street stops by the NYPD
have exploded under commissioner Ray Kelly--
roughly 1,600 times a day.
- People who were stopped,
it was disproportionately nonwhite.
Whites were only 9%.
Blacks, Latinos making up much more of it.
- [shouting]
[screams]
[indistinct shouting]
- That's the climate Kalief grew up in.
Where every young black and Latino--
when you walk out the door, you're a suspect.
- Kalief would talk to me a lot about cops
just frisking them and throwing them on the ground
or being cuffed and stuff like that.
He felt like, you know, they would just
do what they want with him.
- Children were always being profiled.
Stop-and-frisk was involved then.
So it was like everyday occurrence.
Sometimes I would say, "Who got stopped today?"
It's just part of the course.
Every single day, a ton of people
are falsely arrested in this city.
When something happens, the police department
will just grab someone
in the immediate vicinity of something.
- Kalief was walking home with a friend of his.
They were stopped by police officers,
put against the wall, handcuffed almost immediately.
There was a victim in the car,
a spotlight was shone on them from the police car,
which, of course, is inherently suggestive.
- They told you that this person
had accused you of robbing him.
- They searched me. I didn't have nothing.
He said, "Let me go talk to the guy."
- They ask very directed questions,
like, "Isn't this the guy who did it?
Is this the guy who did it?"
- Then they went back, and he said,
"No, this person tried to rob me."
- I said, "How did I try to rob him?"
He said, "Let me finish talking to him."
- If the person immediately says, "You know, I'm not sure.
I'm not sure," and then the third time says,
"Maybe it was," that creates probable cause.
- When he came back, the guy said
I robbed him two weeks ago.
He changed his story three times.
- The witness is changing his story back and forth.
This person was contradicting himself
on when the robbery occurred
and, quite frankly, even if it occurred.
[indistinct police radio chatter]
- There was multiple errors in the police paperwork.
The dates are all screwed up.
- He was arrested on May 15, 2010.
In the criminal complaint, it was alleged
that the robbery took place on May 2, 2010.
In another police report, it's alleged
that it was May 8, 2010.
So right there you have inconsistency from the victim.
- When the defendants were brought into the precinct,
there was no immediate follow-up by a detective
on the date of arrest.
And that may be important,
because the location where the original crime occurred
and the location of the arrest two weeks later
were in close proximity.
Go to that alley. Check the lighting conditions.
You may go there and say, "I don't know
"how this complainant is ID'ing the perps.
You know, it's pretty dark in this alley."
They could've applied for a search warrant
to go and search the residences Of Kalief and Shamel.
Perhaps credit cards were around.
Perhaps the camera was around.
Perhaps the backpack was around.
That said, if I'm a victim of a crime
and I see the suspect walking down the street
and I notify the police officer,
"That person robbed me," two hours in the past,
two days, two weeks, two months or two years in the past,
that police officer has to make that arrest.
They don't have any recourse.
And that's what happened in this situation.
- Good evening. - Good evening.
- You are Mr. Kalief Browder. Is that correct?
- Yes. - Do you know why
you were arrested in this case?
- They said that I, um--
they said I tried to rob somebody,
then they told me that I robbed somebody previously,
one of those.
- Did you rob somebody
in the beginning part of May, Mr. Browder?
- No, no.
- Okay, so you have no idea why you were arrested.
- No.
[indistinct shouting, thud]
- Do you recall what time you arrived at Central Booking?
- About 6:30 a.m.
- It was scary, just in Central Booking alone.
It was older guys, and I see people making threats.
- Did you have an attorney with you?
- I had Legal Aid. - Your mama's not here, boy!
- Kalief's defense attorney at the time,
I think, could've been more adamant
in his representation and more vigorous.
- Um, yeah, I mean...
- That public defender--
he's not judged on his acquittal rate.
He's judged on how many cases he can get off his desk.
- Public defenders are some of the best people in the world,
but they're given caseloads that would destroy
a small law firm, and they're just one person.
- Did you eventually get brought before a judge?
- Yes. - This is the kind of case
where you want to really work the arraignment
and see if you can get the lowest bail or maybe no bail.
If this judge sets a substantial bail,
he's never getting out on the case.
If this judge sets no bail, he's out.
So just let him go, get him out of there,
because something's gonna happen to him.
[gavel bangs]
- Was bail set? - Yes.
- How much was the bail? - $3,000.
- The first thing you could say is just the significance
of a little bit of money.
The majority of people who are accused in the Bronx--
it doesn't matter if it's a $1 million bail
or $750 bail.
They just don't have the means to get out.
- Bail was set at $3,000, but the bond was $900.
Sounds like a small amount, but when you don't have it,
you don't have it.
And I did not have it.
[cries softly]
And I couldn't do anything.
This was my child. They took my child from me--
just snatched him off the street.
- Let's continue. This was my child. They took my child from me--
When you were brought before a judge,
did you learn what charges you were facing?
- Robbery, robbery in the second degree.
- Was bail set? - Yes.
- Do we really think that $3,000
was gonna make the difference
between whether he came back to court or not?
[dramatic music]
- A lot of people just go to the ATM.
But we're sitting in the poorest congressional district
in the country.
85% to 90% of people can't make bail
right out of arraignment.
- From what I know, you know, my mom told me
she didn't have the money, and it was true.
She didn't have the money.
It was a lot for my mom.
- When you don't make bail,
then you would go to a bail bondsman.
- Hi, how may I help you?
- Bondsmen are for-profit companies.
- We help work with the families with some type of collateral.
It doesn't always have to be cash.
- We take jewelry. We take 401(k), life insurances.
- Furs, cars, houses, things like that.
- You say, "Well, jeez, that seems bizarre."
What they're being punished for
is that they don't have enough money to make bail.
That's their crime.
- Our court system isn't saying
they can't be released to society.
Our court system is saying
they have to cough up some cash first.
- Our family-- we didn't have money like that.
My father just recently left, you know, my mom.
My mom depended on him.
She had to rely on whatever he could give her.
She had no food in the house.
- Ma, you need help? - No, I got it.
- You cool? - Yeah.
- She couldn't work because she has heart problems.
- I had my first heart attack in 2000.
And then in 2007, I had my second heart attack.
That's the one that did me in.
Part of my heart's dead. It's gone.
It only pumps 25%, and the medicine I take
is not to make me get better.
It's just to keep me going.
♪ ♪
- It was hard. It was really, really hard.
- Is your father currently employed?
- He's retired.
- As far as the job he had, do you know what he did?
- He worked for the MTA.
- My father used to work all the time.
- He could've.
He could've.
- He had already made up his mind,
"Oh, if Kalief is in Rikers, something is wrong."
He just kept saying it-- "Oh, no, he's bad, he's bad."
♪ ♪
The only thing we could think of was to ask our neighbor
that used to live across the street.
And he gave us the money.
We went to bail bonds on 161st Street.
♪ ♪
And the guy was doing the paperwork.
He accepted the money,
and then he's typing stuff in the computer,
and then he said, "Oh, bail is denied."
So I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
And that's when he said, "Because he violated probation."
- He was sentenced to probation for riding in a bakery truck
with another friend of his.
- He was on felony probation.
He violated the probation by getting rearrested.
He might've been an innocent guy,
but that's not something that's magically determined
by, you know, some force of nature.
I mean, that has to play itself out.
- The Department of Probation can say,
"We're gonna put a hold on you,"
meaning you can't leave jail until this case is resolved,
and that's what they did here.
♪ ♪
- In New York State, for a 16- or 17- or 18-year-old,
they are treated like an adult.
They are charged like an adult.
They are sentenced like an adult.
They are sent to Rikers Island like an adult.
♪ ♪
- Kalief was imprisoned at Rikers Island.
It's isolated. It's away from our view.
Some people have called it
New York's own tiny little Guantanamo Bay.
- Officers and inmates at risk on Rikers Island.
- This stuff breaks grown men, let alone a young guy.
- The only way you're gonna come home to your family
is to plead guilty, whether or not you did it.
And anybody who thinks that you won't plead guilty
to get off Rikers Island has not been to Rikers Island.
You would plead guilty to anything to get off
something that violent and that frightening.
- I didn't do it-- you're not gonna make me say
I did something just so I can go home.
If I got to stay in here just to prove
that I'm innocent, then so be it.
- I feel sorry for adolescents coming to the prison system
because I know they gonna get violated.
♪ ♪
[indistinct shouting]
- It's hell on Earth.
[shouting, pounding]