“Let us not pretend that this kidnapping … was somehow moral … just because it was lawful. … If Americans are not responsible for what happened to Kalief Browder … then we are not responsible for ensuring that it never happens again.”
“[A] boy was snatched off the streets of New York. His parents were told to pay a certain sum, or he would not be released. When they did not pay, he was beaten and then banished to lonely cell. Browder’s captors then offered him a different way out—pay for your freedom in the political currency of a guilty plea. He refused. More beatings. More solitary. The sum was lowered. Browder still refused. He was subjected to the same routine. Browder defeated his captors. They tired, released him, and likely turned to perpetrate the same scheme on some other hapless soul.”
Kalief Browder was born in 1993 and kidnapped by the New York police in May, 2010, when he was 16. He was held without trial for 3 years because his family, being poor, couldn’t make bail. Finally released in 2013, Browder committed suicide on June 6, 2015. His family is suing. (Click here for story.)
Postscript: Browder’s family received a $3.3 million settlement from New York City, but no one was held accountable for his detention, according to Wikipedia (details here).
Photos: Kalief Browder might have been better off in Lubyanka Prison, Moscow, than at Riker’s Island, New York; at least his jailers wouldn’t have forgotten him and left him to rot.
