Kalief Browder: A Life Destroyed by the Myth of American Freedom
TW: Mentions of suicide and cruel treatment.
Recently, I was binging some documentaries and came across "Time: The Kalief Browder Story," and it has been at the forefront of my mind ever since. It is one of the most important stories of our age and highlights all the systemic issues in America's criminal justice system. While this is the story of one man's ordeal, it is representative of the brutal ways society still treats black people and dispels the myth of America’s great promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Kalief Browder (1993-2015) was a black teenager from the Bronx, New York, who on May 15th, 2010, was apprehended by police (along with a friend) for allegedly stealing a backpack that, according to a 911 call placed by Roberto Bautista, contained a camera, $700, a credit card, and an iPod touch. Bautista, on the 911 call, stated: "Two male black guys... they took my brother's book bag." Bautista later identified the vaguely described "two male black guys" as Browder and his friend. Unsurprisingly, Bautista's account of the robbery was highly inconsistent, so bear that in mind.
Initially, Bautista implied that the robbery took place the night of the arrest of Browder and his friend, but upon questioning, he stated that the theft took place two weeks earlier. At the scene, Bautista claimed that someone had 'tried' to rob him and may not have succeeded, and the date of the robbery fluctuated between May 2nd and May 8th of 2015. Confusing, right?
For context, the Bautista family were Mexican immigrants in New York, so undoubtedly suffered huge levels of discrimination and unfair treatment in America. Further, in the documentary it is stressed that the brother who was mugged was understandably traumatised from the event, alleging that he was punched in the face. This crime was an injustice, but the crucial part for this story is that Kalief Browder and his friend were neither the assailants nor the robbers.
So, all this to say, the case surrounding Kalief Browder as 'the robber' was dubious from the beginning. As it goes in America, the police were more than ready to arrest a black person for a crime with little to no evidence (they didn’t even find the backpack when they searched Browder). Browder maintained his innocence but was charged with robbery, grand larceny, and assault. At 16, Browder was charged (as an adult) with third-degree grand larceny as he pleaded guilty to a crime to which he later stated he was only a bystander. So, when he allegedly stole a bag, Browder’s bail was set at $3000, and with a bail bondsman, this fell to $900. Browder’s family did not have this money, so borrowed it from a neighbour. But, since Browder was on probation for his 2009 felony, he was no longer eligible for bail. Therefore, he was incarcerated in the notorious ‘Rikers Island’ as he awaited trial. Legally innocent, actually innocent, yet placed in shackles.
The first injustice I would like to cover is bail. It’s a system that most people likely pay little attention to, but is the first injustice individuals face upon entering the criminal justice system. Here enters the bail bondsman, aka, a person/agency that will pay bail for the defendant in exchange for a fee. The bail bondsman takes a fee, that being a percentage of the bail amount, and collateral from the defendant, for example, in the form of jewelry, cars, or real estate. They are loan providers for the cost of bail, with the collateral acting as the guarantee that the person arrested will appear at trial. Essentially, they rely on somebody else's shit situation, so that they can both weaken and profit from the criminal justice system, often leaving their clients in debt even after they've been cleared of their charges. Those who cannot afford bail are trapped: they can either stay in jail awaiting trial or hatch a deal with the devil (bail bondsman) and fall into the dark pits of debt. Unsurprisingly, the bail bondsman industry is worth $14 billion a year.
Then we have the treatment of inmates by correction officers - whilst imprisoned in Rikers awaiting trial, Kalief Browder recalled the ever-present violence which permeated the facility, both from other inmates and most gallingly, the correction officers (prison guards). Browder recalled him and other inmates being lined up against a wall as the correction officers tried to find the instigator of a fight. In this line, the inmates were punched, one by one, causing nose damage, busted eyes and bloodied faces. They were then instructed not to report their injuries or else they'd be placed in solitary confinement. Ultimately, this barred inmates from getting the necessary medical care from nurses, and meant nobody could be held accountable for the assaults.
This leads me to the third, and perhaps the most brutal injustice, solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is when you are placed in an isolated cell, cut off from other inmates. Penal Reform International states that ‘medical research has shown that the denial of meaningful human contact can cause 'isolation syndrome,' which can include anxiety, depression, perceptual distortions, paranoia, psychosis, self-harm and suicide.’ United Nations Special Rapporteurs have stated that solitary confinement is cruel, inhumane, degrading, and may amount to torture. Browder spent approximately 800 days in solitary confinement as a teenager. His young, developing brain was subjected to torture and trauma beyond imagination, and left him with deep, irreversible psychological scars. Browder attempted to take his own life whilst in solitary confinement, and the guards eventually intervened, but swiftly after began to assault him.
Trial delays are the fourth injustice I would like to cover. One of the most frustrating details about Browder's trial is that it was repeatedly delayed due to a backlog of work at the Bronx County District Attorney's office. Throughout his 3-year imprisonment (legally innocent, might I add) Browder's trial proceedings were delayed upwards of 10 times. In the eyes of the law, Browder was never a guilty man, because he couldn't even have a fair trial. Yet, all this time awaiting trial, he was still held in Rikers Island.
Finally, due to the huge number of cases that the District Attorney's Offices face, plea bargains have become the default of settling cases (just to get them out of the way). Time after time, Browder was offered a plea bargain, meaning he could have a reduced sentence of 2.5 years in prison if he pleaded guilty, vs. approximately 15 years in prison if he was found guilty at trial, or Browder's preferred sentence of freedom from trial, yanno, since he was innocent and all. So, on principle, Browder refused each plea bargain he was offered, because he was innocent and didn't want the convicted felon lifestyle America has to offer.
In May 2013, prosecutors revealed that Bautista had returned to Mexico and could not give testimony against Browder. Since they could no longer go to trial, the prosecution team dropped the charges and Browder was finally released.
Despite trying to get an education and continue the fight for justice for all the people who had been treated as cruelly as him, Kalief Browder committed suicide in June 2015, at just 22 years old. The trauma from the inhumane levels of injustice that Browder was forced to endure was too much to bear and his death ought to be on the conscience of all those in power that allowed these grave human and civil rights violations to be committed.
Browder's case is a tragedy and demonstrates the systemic nature of racism, which is at its most evident in the policing and justice system. Black Americans are incarcerated at a much higher rate than white Americans due to the racial biases of the police, not to mention the treatment inmates face during their time in prison, and if they plead guilty, despite being innocent, they're convicted felons for life. In 10 states [Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wyoming] felons lose their voting rights indefinitely for some crimes, require a governor's pardon for voting rights to be restored, face an additional waiting period after completion of sentence, or require additional action before voting rights can be restored. This is a dire violation of people's civil rights. Coupling all this with the fact that so many facets of society profit from the prison system, it is clear why those at the top are in favour of mass incarceration.
Ultimately, Kalief Browder’s story is representative of the most perpetuated and relentless lie of the American Dream - freedom. In fact, to me, America is one of the least free places on earth. How can a crime, let alone one as minor as the 'theft' of a backpack, justify treating a human being, a teenage boy, like an animal: beaten, maimed, psychologically tortured, degraded, and scarred for life? More than that, Kalief Browder was killed by the system in one of the most famously opulent places on this planet, the pinnacle of wealth and glitz, New York City. Mere miles from the skyscrapers of Manhattan, Kalief Browder, and thousands of others, have been, and still are, being caged in a horrific environment.
America holds 4.2% of the world’s population, yet more than 20% of the world's incarcerated population. This is not a free country; this is the evils of America’s past reincarnated in different forms: slavery, Jim Crow, and now mass incarceration. Until real, systemic change is made in America, freedom will forever be the biggest lie in America’s past, present, and future.
