[gears whirring]
[rhythmic ticking]
- Mayor De Blasio is remembering the young man
who killed himself over the weekend
following his three year jail sentence without a trial.
- This past Saturday,
Kalief Browder committed suicide,
hanging himself out a window of his mother's home.
- Kalief Browder hanged himself with a air conditioner cord
in his home in the Bronx.
- I just watched him
from being this young happy kid
to this sad person.
[dramatic music]
- It's tough for us.
We can't see behind tears and behind pain,
but this young man will effect change
in a way that we can't see now.
- What do we want? all: Justice!
- You are responsible for Kalief Browder being dead!
Who's gonna put you on trial? Who's gonna...
- Is there anyone who has been held to account?
- Not yet. Not yet.
- Rikers, NYPD, the judicial system,
all had a part in my son's death.
- Mayor De Blasio says Browder's story
helped inspire his efforts to reform the trouble...
- I deeply wish we hadn't lost him,
but he did not die in vain.
- Time for an aggressive look at a crisis
of constitutional rights to a speedy trial.
- Renewed call to raise the age of criminal responsibility.
- President Obama banned solitary confinement
for juveniles, he cites the tragic case
of Kalief Browder in New York City.
- My main focus is to get justice for Kalief.
Nobody's gonna fight for that justice but me.
- My father wasn't a part of Kalief's life at all.
Do you know how disgusted he would feel?
Back the [bleep] up. Back the [bleep] up.
- Don't touch him.
- It's sort of taken a turn for the worse.
- I see my mom declining.
You ruined Kalief,
and now the domino effect is on us.
[clicks]
♪ ♪
[whirring]
[soft dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- First, I didn't wanna believe it,
so I called my next-door neighbor,
and he confirmed it.
- The morning of that day he died,
I seen him from the front,
and he was talking to him mom and he was like,
"Yeah, Dave, after you're finished come over."
It's like, "Yeah, yeah, I'll come over,"
and then I just got the phone call.
And I couldn't-- I didn't know what--
[stammers] I thought I was dreaming.
Like, I didn't know what to do.
I just started shaking.
♪ ♪
My grandparents called me
and said they saw him hanging from the window.
♪ ♪
- The detectives, they come in the room
and they say, "We're about to take the body,"
And they pull the sheet back
and you seen him laying there
and it just looked like he was sleeping.
♪ ♪
And then...
they took him.
[sirens wailing]
♪ ♪
- Kalief was a great uncle to my kids.
He would ask my mother how they're doing.
He would ask me how they doing,
and every single time he seen 'em
and at first they would run from him,
but he would tell me, "Don't worry, bro."
[emotionally] "I love my niece and nephew."
But because of what these assholes did
to my brother inside,
he couldn't deal with it.
[exhales, sniffles]
- I went up to the house and...
the family was there.
It was a terrible place to be.
♪ ♪
And...
I felt like time's been, like, against us.
- He was really trying,
but something deeper was a lot more powerful
than anything anybody could do.
♪ ♪
- The Friday night before he took his life,
he was reading messages every 15 minutes.
He was pacing back and forth.
♪ ♪
He said, "Ma, they warned me, and I didn't listen,
so my life is over. They're coming after me."
♪ ♪
- It was a train wreck of events.
♪ ♪
He got stabbed,
he got shot,
he got arrested on a new case,
and he had to go back to court.
♪ ♪
- And I know Kalief did not wanna go back.
He did not wanna go back because they lied to him the first time,
so what was gonna keep them from not taking him again.
- You survived what most people never could,
and I'm very proud of you. - Thank you.
- Very proud of you. - Thank you.
- I would check in with him, like, "How's it going?
What's going on?"
♪ ♪
And he was doing well.
[chimes]
[pings]
[chimes]
[pings]
In the morning,
about noon,
he wrote me, "I'm sorry.
"I just have to go away for a while.
"There's mental pressures.
I hope you can understand."
[pings] I was like, "No problem.
I'm here. I love you."
♪ ♪
So I could not believe it.
[emotionally] I couldn't believe it.
I still have trouble believing it.
- [sniffles] I'm still in shock.
To me, it's still-- it's still surreal.
- [quietly] I can't believe it.
♪ ♪
[sighs]
♪ ♪
- I don't know what he could have become.
♪ ♪
Maybe he would've been an author.
What if he would've been a physicist?
What if he would have come up with the cure for cancer?
[gear clicks]
[gears whirring]
- I just wanted to be an activist,
you know, stand up for certain things
that I believe is right.
- The conversation started with Eric Garner,
and then we started talking about the black experience,
and racism...
- Not guilty.
- And I could see his growth.
He was thinking analytically
because he was asking questions of the larger society.
This is now not just his case.
- You know, I mean, it's hard.
like, you know, I'm supposed to trust the police,
but I see a lot of stuff going on out here.
- [shouting]
- You know, I just wanna be somebody
to stand up and make a change.
♪ ♪
- All these brave figures that we celebrate,
it takes for their energy to no longer be there
for us to learn from it. By my definition,
a prophet is any field of energy
that can cause major change over generations.
- Whose lives matter? all: Black lives matter!
- His suicide is not a suicide.
It really is murder.
- Say his name! all: Kalief Browder!
- If the tragedy of Kalief Browder
is not a powerful enough impetus for reform,
I don't know what is.
- The suicide death of Kalief Browder
is now shining the spotlight on Rikers Island
in the city's criminal justice system.
- When he committed suicide in June,
it sparked rallies and protests and comments from the mayor.
- There's just no reason
he should have gone through that ordeal.
- Spurring a louder call for bail reform.
- The bail system is broken.
- But we're standing here and we're talking about it
because of the tragedy.
- Wake up, America, 'cause the dream has been over.
- Time for an aggressive look at a crisis
of constitutional rights to a speedy trial.
I carry a bill to fix this,
uh, named for Kalief Browder.
- The bill would build in court delay
into the calculations of speedy trial time.
- News of Kalief Browder taking his life
renewed calls from lawmakers
to finally raise the age of criminal responsibility
in New York State.
- If black lives really matter
then we will raise the age
and stop treating kids as adults.
- Once his story became public
it caused a lot of people to act.
- I've asked my attorney general
to start a review
of the overuse of solitary confinement
across American prison.
[cheers and applause]
[dramatic music]
Do we really think it makes sense
to lock so many people alone in tiny cells
for 23 hours a day for years at a time?
That is not going to make us safer,
and if those individuals are ultimately released,
how are they ever going to adapt?
- President Obama announcing major change Monday
on the use of solitary confinement.
- He announced a ban on solitary confinement
for juveniles in federal prison.
- Writing an op-ed in Tuesday's "Washington Post,"
Obama cites the tragic case of Kalief Browder
in New York City.
- New York did away
with solitary confinement
for 16- and 17-year-olds.
Plans were announced to fix
a right to a speedy trial.
There are also calls for a change
to the cash bail system.
- Our goal is closing these institutions altogether.
all: [chanting] Shut it down!
- Call his name! all: Kalief Browder!
- Call his name! [together] Kalief Browder!
♪ ♪
- [sighs]
The ivy is growing,
but only right there,
and that's the room where Kalief took his life.
There's no ivy growing on the side.
It's just right there.
♪ ♪
It--it's hard to explain, but you can see it.
♪ ♪
- I can see it.
His energy will shift the world.
[clicks]
[soft dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- This card is very special.
It's a mother's day card
from Kalief,
and it says, "To my amazing mother.
"You're generous, caring,
"kind, smart, funny,
"encouraging, loving, giving,
"honest, compassionate,
and just plain awesome,"
and Kalief wrote,
"Thanks for always being there for me,
trusting and believing in me."
♪ ♪
[sighs deeply]
♪ ♪
I'm just waiting for the day Kalief gets justice.
♪ ♪
Hopefully things will happen
where his name just keeps going,
and what he stood for.
Justice failed him,
but he still believed in justice,
and he is the face of truth and justice.
And I believe that wholeheartedly.
He was here for a reason.
I just wish...
that he could of found another way to do it.
I'm sorry,
but why did it have to be him? [sighs]
♪ ♪
- Is nobody willing to say, "You know what?
I dropped the ball on this"?
Where's the prosecutor who says "I messed up"?
Where's the judge who says "We got this wrong"?
And that needs to be said, like, even to help his family heal.
Somebody needs to admit that they could have done better.
- Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson
is looking to leave his post in a controversial move
that would let party officials hand pick his successor.
- A maneuver that's legal, but not necessarily ethical.
- Uh, no I'm not ta-- I'm not saying anything
beyond what I said inside.
- A move like this has been rumored for some time.
There were even reports that he was being pressured
to step down.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Why do you think the party leaders selected you?
- I think it's the experience that I've had.
[whirring, clicking]
♪ ♪
- Zero contrition on the part
of correction officer union president Norman Seabrook.
- There's lots of brutality.
Horrible brutality.
- These are murderers, rapists, arsonists...
- They have broken bones in their face.
- Hold on. Let me ask you.
Do you think that they come there and say,
let me play nice with the correction officers?
I met Kalief's mother,
and I was apologetic for anything that she may assume
that we did that we didn't do
or we did that we shouldn't have done.
- Let us hear now from the Bronx district attorney.
- I inherited a lot of things, okay?
So it's not all mine.
- Kalief Browder
to be kept on Rikers Island for three years
is a disgrace.
[applause]
- My approach is to make sure that all the investiga--
Rikers Island... They're the ones responsible.
They're the ones that should be up on charges
and be facing punishment and repercussions
for what their role has been.
- New York City corrections officer,
the head of the union, Norman Seabrook...
- Norman Seabrook, one of the most powerful
union presidents in all of New York...
- Was arrested on federal charges of corruption.
- Seabrook is accused of taking $60,000 in kickbacks
for funneling union pension funds into a hedge fund.
- Seabrook was paid in a very old-fashioned way,
cash stuffed inside
an $800 Salvatore Ferragamo handbag.
- The FBI found the designer bag
during a raid of Seabrook's home Wednesday morning.
- Seabrook complained to a friend
that it was time that Norman Seabrook got paid.
- U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara alleges Seabrook got paid.
- We intend to be as aggressive as ever
in exposing corruption wherever we find it,
and it is too bad
that we seem to find it
everywhere we look.
[camera shutters clicking]
♪ ♪
- This is "Nightline."
Tonight, Victim of the System.
Kalief Browder's life behind bars was a nightmare,
but he refused to plead guilty
to a crime he said he didn't commit.
Tonight, how his mother is working to find justice.
- Has anyone apologized to you from Rikers?
- No. - From the prosecutor's office?
- No.
It's not one person,
it's a whole system
that destroyed my son,
and I want them all to pay.
- We're on a quest for justice right now, Byron.
Admit you did something wrong here.
'Cause that was always Kalief's message.
How many young men have to go through this?
[soft dramatic music]
We were left with trying to figure out
how to pick up the pieces and find justice.
From his arrest to his incarceration
to the endless prosecution
to even after the fact
where he wasn't give proper medical care
by the city hospitals,
and we filed a wrongful death suit,
alleging that it was the system that killed Kalief in this case.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Check out... - But why Kalief?
There are hundreds of Kaliefs. - Paul Prestia has been with
and representing the Browders since the beginning.
- I don't think anybody could really understand.
- Kalief was a walking dollar sign.
- The 21-year-old had recently been reliving
those excruciating memories in depositions,
as he hoped for a settlement and an apology from the city.
- The mother and father don't get along at all.
They're separated,
they're still, I guess, technically married,
but they don't live in the same house.
♪ ♪
- He's doing this for the money, of course.
♪ ♪
Once he left my mom,
he wasn't a part of Kalief's life at all.
♪ ♪
My dad never visit him.
He never even talked about him.
He didn't care.
When Kalief needed the $900, the bail,
he had the money,
but he never gave the money.
He thought Kalief was a criminal.
This whole time, he thought he did it.
He thought he was, you know, guilty.
- If my brother would've seen that,
do you know how disgusted he would feel?
[soft dramatic music]
[indistinct chatter]
- The city has a moral obligation
to pay this family the appropriate damages
that they're entitled to
for what happened to this young man in prison,
which ultimately led to his suicide.
- This has been my case for three years.
I'm not about to just give it up
because some attorney wants to [bleep] show up
and parade himself around.
- We're happy to talk to the city,
but at the end of the day,
appropriate damages need to be paid.
- No, no, he represents the mother.
He--he has a right to be in the case.
- Mr. Browder, will you make a comment
about the case and what's gonna happen today?
- Well, I would like to go to trial.
- No, he's gonna--he's gonna resolve everything with me.
We're gonna make comments outside.
Let's go outside. - Okay.
- Come outside. You can listen to us outside.
You guys ready? - Yeah, we're good.
- All right, we were here today for a conference
before the court in the civil lawsuit
involving the wrongful death of Kalief Browder.
It is clear to his father
that what happened to him
should be exposed at a public trial.
Certainly the mayor of the city
should be deposed under oath.
- Mr. Browder, can you tell us your feelings
about Kalief's passing,
and how he's had an effect on the criminal justice system?
- Well, I would like to go to trial
so the whole world will know what they did to my son.
That's all I have to say right now.
- Questions? - Can you tell us...
- I'm angry, pissed off,
and it shouldn't be.
You know, I'm in pain every day,
and to have somebody just come along
and wanna showboat...
I mean it's not fair to Kalief and it's not fair to me.
♪ ♪
So sometime I'll just got to sleep
to keep from thinking.
♪ ♪
I just stay in my room every day,
don't go anywhere.
♪ ♪
I think about Kalief.
I cry.
They keep telling me that's the probably,
that all I wanna do is stay in my room.
- I see my mom declining and it's hurting me.
When she tells me, "I don't wanna fight anymore."
- I have three stints in my heart.
They won't put anymore.
The next step is open heart surgery,
and I don't want that.
♪ ♪
I'm just so depressed
that I stopped taking my medicine.
I don't care about anything.
Whether I live or die.
♪ ♪
[soft dramatic music]
- I don't have a normal heart,
a full heart.
It's a damaged heart.
And it got damaged even more
from losing my son.
I was so depressed
that I stopped taking my medicine.
It was like I didn't care. [sirens wailing]
It made me very ill.
♪ ♪
I ended up in the hospital
gasping for air.
But it's like something came over me
and said, "No, you gotta fix this.
'Cause you have a job to do."
[dramatic music]
Kalief was my son.
I know what he went through.
I went through a lot with him.
To see somebody that really didn't care
and all you're talking about is money.
Like he's a commodity.
He's not a commodity,
that's my son,
and I love him.
♪ ♪
I have to keep his story going,
to get people to understand
what he went through.
He can't speak for himself so I'm his words now.
They could not get him to take a plea deal
for something he did not do. But the problem is,
a lot of kids do take a plea deal.
Then when it's time to get a decent job you can't,
because you have a felony.
Before Kalief's death,
I never spoke out anywhere
except to my kids...
[ticking]
But now I have to fight.
The city won't acknowledge it,
Rikers, NYPD, the judicial system,
all three of them had a part in my son's death.
I don't want his story to die,
I don't want people to forget
who Kalief Browder was.
Kalief kept saying, "I don't know this guy,
I didn't rob him."
[sighs]
I have to get the strength to go out there,
because if I don't
I can't expect anybody else to do it.
People care
because they see I care him.
The system needs to be changed
'cause there's a lot of other Kaliefs out there.
[ticking]
This is my job, this is what I have to do now.
And wherever I'm asked to speak I will.
- Hey, how are you? - Hi, Jay Z!
♪ ♪
It's too late unfortunately for my son Kalief,
but it will definitely benefit other youths.
He's not the first kid that it happened to,
but he's my son.
I'm fighting for justice for Kalief.
[applause]
- Beautiful. - It's really pretty.
[soft music]
You wanna cut it? - Huh?
[indistinct chatter]
♪ ♪
[sighs]
He should be here.
♪ ♪
I just wanna say, let this day,
May 29th, 2016,
be remembered as the day we came together
to pay tribute to a young hero, Kalief Browder.
It's also the day Kalief claimed as his new birthday,
because it was the date that he was released from Rikers,
the day he got his freedom. He was reborn.
I love you Kalief.
And mommy miss you so much.
♪ ♪
[sniffles]
- Kalief was very smart,
book-wise, street-wise,
hard-headed...
[laughs] A Browder.
[laughs]
But he was also caring and compassionate.
Kalief we miss you,
and I'm sorry I couldn't be the older brother
to help you
get out of that nonsense you was in.
♪ ♪
We love you, Kalief.
- A lot of people miss you, Kalief.
You are missed, you are loved.
[soft dramatic music]
- Today is just a celebration,
you know, to remember Kalief for the person he was.
We're celebrating what he accomplished in his life
and what he's still accomplishing.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
- When I go out and speak,
it's to keep his name going.
To get people to understand
what he went through.
He started something and he couldn't finish,
so now it's up to me.
The torch was passed to me.
- I would like to acknowledge Mrs. Venida Browder.
[applause]
- Good evening everyone,
I would like to thank all who have made
the Kalief Browder Memorial Scholarship possible.
This scholarship will help formerly incarcerated students
attending Bronx Community College.
Turning a setback in their lives
into a step forward towards a brighter future.
This is exactly what Kalief wanted.
On behalf of myself and my son Kalief,
thank you for your support and all you have done.
[applause]
♪ ♪
- She just went for a follow up on her heart,
and it took a turn for the worse.
She has chronic heart failure,
she may need a heart transplant within the next year.
♪ ♪
And now all this other stuff is happening.
There's a lot of uncertainty in terms of her house.
- Well, Mommy called me and she said,
"So it's official."
I said, "What are you talking about?"
And she's like, "Daddy wants to sell the house,"
and I'm like,
"It's a tactic to force her out the house."
I think it's really selfish... - And no one's going against it.
- It's just an attempt to get more money.
He just knows that Mom is weak. - Yeah.
She's gonna get kicked out.
- Yep.
♪ ♪
- I've been here 31 years,
I've raised all my kids here,
Kalief took his life here.
There's a lot of memories in this house,
and especially the ivy that just grows
over the window where Kalief took his life.
Every time I go in that room,
I lift the blinds just so I can see the ivy,
to see how much it's growing,
I say, "Yeah, Kalief, Mommy see you!"
You know, it's--
it means a lot.
That's his life right there.
That's how I look at it.
If it was up to me,
I'd live here until my last breath.
♪ ♪
- My concern with Venida is that,
you know, this case has really taken it's toll.
I mean, she's the one that's really suffered here.
The city could be in a position
where they don't wanna talk about settlement
for another year.
But where's Venida gonna be in a year?
What's her condition gonna be?
♪ ♪
- The bad news never ends.
♪ ♪
I'm still no closer to justice for Kalief
then from when-- the day we started.
The system slowly but surely
caused his death,
and that's what's happening to me.
- What's important to me?
My family. My family...
- Whee.
- I just wanna see myself
where me and my family are happy
and there's no worries.
You know, we're not stressing over anything,
just having a stable life.
You know, a peace of mind.
♪ ♪
[sirens wailing]
[indistinct chatter]
- Excuse me.
[overlapping chatter]
- I don't know what's going on right now
cause...
Can you just come here, please? Thank you.
- My mom had to be,
um, rushed to the hospital,
and she stopped breathing
and my brother Kamal performed CPR.
♪ ♪
- She's--she's stable she's gonna pull through.
I have faith in her.
♪ ♪
[machine beeping]
- Eddie came through with his henchmen.
- To see him come in there like that,
it really disgusts me. It's like,
"You know what you're doing is wrong."
- She's fighting for her life right now, man.
It's not fair that she has to go through any of this.
My mom put all of us in her house.
We've all been adopted by my mom.
For her to take in all these kids
to lose on of the ones that she took in.
- New York City didn't do anything for her son,
they neglected him,
they didn't take any responsibility,
they didn't believe her or him,
dragging this stupid lawsuit out,
and now my mom is dying for god sake.
She's dying, okay?
[melancholy piano music]
♪ ♪
[somber piano music]
♪ ♪
- My mom's at peace.
She's no longer suffering.
It's just unfortunate it had to end this way.
- What happened with Kalief
threw her over the edge.
She's better off not having to fight this fight anymore,
but I wanted to see her fight it to the end
'cause that's what she wanted.
She wanted to see Kalief's story get finished.
Now...
she's not gonna have that chance.
♪ ♪
- Welcome back to "Inside City Hall."
Venida Browder died suddenly on Friday
after suffering a heart attack.
- Venida Browder was a woman who tirelessly&.
- Venida's hell would end without apology.
- For criminal justice reform
despite a system that failed her and her son.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- She just wanted an apology.
That was her biggest thing.
♪ ♪
- Because Venida passed away,
lawsuits against the city are stopped,
until an administrator is appointed by the court
to take over her place in the lawsuit,
and it's gonna be a fight.
- You're not gonna do [bleep]?
[both talking at once]
- Oh, yo, yo. - You're not gonna do nothing?
- Back the [bleep] up.
- We lost our brother,
then we lost our mother,
and now we're losing our whole family.
They want us to fight each other
instead of fighting the system,
and I bet they get a kick out of it,
the fact that we're going to court right now
fighting each other while they're the real problem,
and we should have been fighting them.
- We started this with Kalief when he was alive,
and then he passed.
And we continued that fight for his mother,
and now she passed.
Now we have to try to salvage something
for his family.
But I don't know, it may be too little too late.
We may have run out of time.
[thrums] [door creaks]
- Tonight is the last day that my family has with this house.
- Last rights.
- Eddie sold the house three days after my mom passed.
- It's sad, my mom's no longer here anymore,
it's time to go.
This is a family that is broken apart,
because the system, it failed us.
But we were born into the system,
and there are many people like us out there
that are going through the same thing.
♪ ♪
We're put here for a reason.
♪ ♪
In time-- we don't understand now,
but later we will.
♪ ♪
- Everything is flipped. It's "greater good."
Even today, right?
- Greatness!
- I would do stop-and-frisk.
We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well.
- Please, please! Somebody help!
- It's gonna be a beautiful thing.
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
- You know we can't see behind tears and behind pain
and behind the current emotions.
But I can see it.
- We as a nation need to act,
and I think we have a unique moment, an opportunity,
a moment in time that, um, we can't let pass.
- There are many people that say
that the picture of Emmett Till in 1955
is what sparked the Civil Rights Movement.
Take a good look at Kalief Browder.
There is a window that's open right now
to move both racial justice and criminal justice
in the right direction.
And that window has not been open--
I don't think, for the past 50 years.
- Stop! Do it right now!
[gunshots]
- Oh my god!
- All these things we're seeing on video now.
[gunshots]
Those things have been going on for decades.
[dramatic music]
People are seeing these things,
and it's graphic and it's horrifying,
but you have got to make people squirm
before they'll actually do something about it.
[together] No justice no peace! No justice no peace!
- People have fought much tougher opponents and won.
If you let this go down as just another bad news story
for some kid in some urban environment,
you miss a tremendous opportunity.
- I think it begs the question
of whether the system's actually broken,
or whether the system that we've created
is doing precisely what we intended it to do.
- The fact that this story has reached so many
hopefully will mean that Kalief's life
was not in vain,
and will make people shake off their deliberate indifference,
and care more about those
who we've treated as disposable.
But if we don't change,
their deaths are on us.
[indistinct chatter and laughter]
- If I would've just plead guilty
then my story would've never been heard.
Nobody would've took the time to listen to me,
I'd have been just another criminal.
[somber music]
♪ ♪
- The death of Kalief Browder
was a wake-up call to this city.
I'm here to make a historic announcement.
New York City will close the Rikers Island jail facility.
It will take many years,
it will take many tough decisions along the way,
but it will happen.
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