Accused of Stealing a Backpack, High School Student Jailed for Nearly Three Years Without Trial

[Cali_Democrat]

Yes...he's black....

In the early hours of Saturday, May 15, 2010, ten days before his seventeenth birthday, Kalief Browder and a friend were returning home from a party in the Belmont section of the Bronx. They walked along Arthur Avenue, the main street of Little Italy, past bakeries and cafés with their metal shutters pulled down for the night. As they passed East 186th Street, Browder saw a police car driving toward them. More squad cars arrived, and soon Browder and his friend found themselves squinting in the glare of a police spotlight. An officer said that a man had just reported that they had robbed him. “I didn’t rob anybody,” Browder replied. “You can check my pockets.”

The officers searched him and his friend but found nothing. As Browder recalls, one of the officers walked back to his car, where the alleged victim was, and returned with a new story: the man said that they had robbed him not that night but two weeks earlier. The police handcuffed the teens and pressed them into the back of a squad car. “What am I being charged for?” Browder asked. “I didn’t do anything!” He remembers an officer telling them, “We’re just going to take you to the precinct. Most likely you can go home.” Browder whispered to his friend, “Are you sure you didn’t do anything?” His friend insisted that he hadn’t.


At the Forty-eighth Precinct, the pair were fingerprinted and locked in a holding cell. A few hours later, when an officer opened the door, Browder jumped up: “I can leave now?” Instead, the teens were taken to Central Booking at the Bronx County Criminal Court.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/law-3

[sakabatou]

1. WTF, no trial?!

Last edited Thu Oct 2, 2014, 06:06 AM - Edit history (1)

This... this isn't justice.

[Cali_Democrat]

2. Also...800 days in solitary confinement.

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/1/accused_of_stealing_a_backpack_high

[sakabatou]

5. That will screw with someone's psyche

[cali]

3. thanks for posting. excellent- and horrifying- piece.

[hobbit709]

4. But we're not living in a police state.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. i knew he was black before clicking on this article

so disgusting

[Scuba]

7. Yep.

[Enthusiast]

12. Me too.

[City Lights]

19. Indeed.

Makes my blood boil.

[valerief]

26. Of course. nt

[rock]

28. My first question was gonna to be

Black?

[uponit7771]

36. +1

[Sparhawk60]

8. This Will Not Stop

This will never stop until we start holding the persons involved criminally responsible. At least he can retire from the settlement he will be getting.

[joelz]

9. the author

of the story and the victims lawyer discuss the case on Democracy now

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/1/accused_of_stealing_a_backpack_high

[valerief]

29. Thanks. Excellent Democracy Now clip. nt

[riderinthestorm]

10. K&R. Horrified. nt

[Uben]

11. DA should be disbarred

How can anyone be locked up that long without a trial? There must be corruption there somewhere, and if the DA is not complicit, he/she is damned sure incompetent.

[FailureToCommunicate]

13. Walking with some of my high school buddies, two squad cars pull up and the officers slam us to

the side of the car yelling all sorts of questions. One officer asked me what I was doing with "these n*****s"
I was so surprised, I said "Umm, walking..." School had let out early and were walking into downtown.

And this was in White Plains, New York.

Enough things like that happened to me or my friends to make me not always look on cops as 'Officer Friendly'



And, yeah, post racial, my ass.

[newfie11]

14. I hope to hell he is awarded millions

What horrors our justice system has done to this kid!

Unfreaking believable!

[marym625]

15. A throw away society

Police, judicial branch and executive branch set up to cause teens to fail.

I can't help but wonder if money changes hands for the number of people who are locked up. I can't find if Rikers is completely privatized but many of the services received by the prison are private companies contracted with the prison

The recidivism rate sure would go down if inmates never get out. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/02/goldman-sachs-to-invest-9_n_1732436.html

This breaks my heart. It's just another proof of how our government looks at its citizens. We're garbage. Nothing more than garbage. The darker your skin, the more easily you're just thrown away.

How many kids does this happen to that have no family that support them? That don't have the will, the strength, the fortitude to endure such long term abuse and neglect? How many plead guilty to something they never did, that the State never would have been able to prosecute? How many of those then end up back in prison for some minor infraction for years because of a record that should not exist? How many can't take the pressure and end up dead at their own hands?

What the fuck have we become?

[heaven05]

18. Become?

always has been, just more spotlight on these types of situations. Let's hope it never goes back to when you almost NEVER heard about these ongoing travesties. And don't misunderstand me, this has ALWAYS been in this country. It's only people with true compassion that will be able to stop these perversions of justice. I don't think the numbers or courage is out there to be able to stop this. Not enough people will ever speak up, vote politicians who happily applaud this type of 'justice out of office or get up off their couches and just go to the window and scream about this BS.

Minorities and poor folk are here to serve the oligarchs and then, as you say, become throwaways when use is deemed done.

Well I'll keep shouting about the unequal nature of amerikkkan culture when it comes to poor and minority people, been doing it since Vietnam, and I won't stop till I drop. Keep up the fight. As long as people are calling bullshit to the racism in this hypocritical nation, people won't be able to hide behind their privilege and say someone like this deserves what they got.

[marym625]

21. True. very true

I believe though, in SOME aspects, it is worse only because of the shear number of people involved. Both the number of throw aways and number of those doing the throwing or disposing of human beings.

My grandmother came to this country in 1910, at the age of 19, from Ireland. Something almost unheard of at that time, a young woman traveling alone. We have letters she wrote home to her sisters, talking about working for the blue bloods of Boston. She says, "it's a terrible thing to be a slave to the Yanks."

Not much has changed in many ways. But I am with you. I will continue to fight, on and off my couch, as I have since I was 7 campaigning for McGovern.


PEACE!

[marble falls]

16. But racism is dead. Except that it isn't.

[heaven05]

17. Well, slowly the facade

of post racial society breaks down for the ones who can really change racism. Post racial was for a few minutes my hope in January 2009, faded after about a week, went back to how I always felt. BS on post racial. THREE FUCKING YEARS!!!!???? For nothing, based on the word of some jerk? This is truly amerikkka, yesterday, today, tomorrow, forever.

[malaise]

20. The private prison industry has to be fed

[thesquanderer]

32. I don't think New York permits private prisons (n/t)

[surrealAmerican]

22. The law needs to change so that this will never happen again.

Prosecutors kept asking for short delays knowing full well that the overburdened courts delay far longer. The law is supposed to insure that a trial takes place within six months, or the case will be dropped. Six months is bad enough, especially when you're talking about a juvenile, but the limit needs to be absolute.

[1monster]

23. Prison and jail time should be abolished for all but the most egregious crimes...

Those of violence or credible threats to the community.

Close most of the prisons and instead use that money to set up a working rehabilitation program, which would include restitution, community service which actually benefits the community, and the rest should go to creating a free higher education and career/job training programs.

Norway's Restorative Justice syster might be a very good program for the US to study--it seems to work very well with considerably less prison time and very little recidivism.

We need to do something, because the system we have is not only needlessly cruel and archaic, it not only doesn't work, it is counter productive and robs of revenues that could be used for educstion, health care, infrastructure, and the arts, among others.

[AndreaCG]

24. Ok I work in Bronx Criminal Court

This is not in the least meant to justify this outrage but I will try to explain what I surmise is the reason. There are two criminal courts in each borough. Criminal court is where the original arraignment of all cases occurs, and misdemeanors and violations remain here for either pleas or a trial. Supreme Court is where felonies are handled. At one point the two courts were merged, which was meant to streamline the operations of the court. This experiment failed and we are once again separate courts.

The primary problem is we are SEVERELY understaffed in every position, from judges on down to the lowest level clerical worker. Additionally, while a new court building was erected about six years ago, which was meant to house both parts of the criminal division, it was incredibly poorly designed in every way possible. Two simple examples: courtrooms which are too small and not nearly enough of them. And WHO THE FUCK thought it was a good idea to design an all glass courthouse AFTER 9-11?????!!!! We have had panels fall onto the street!

This all results in a terrible backlog of cases. Stats for the five boroughs regarding how long a defendant awaits trial are not good. The Bronx is much worse than average. And while substantial bail must be set on serious crimes, even bail of $1000 is out of the reach of many defendants.

However, without knowing all the details of this particular defendant's background, l don't know if he has a history of prior criminal convictions or a warrant history that would indicate whether he is indeed a flight risk. That said, three years to face trial is outrageous yet sadly not atypical in the Bronx.

[TeamPooka]

30. If you read the whole article you would have the detals you claim you don't have. You are Dismissed

for cause.

[AndreaCG]

31. I did read it afterward

The system is broken. I freely admit it. Unfortunately I am not the one who can increase the numbers of court personnel, lawyers and certainly cant build a more useful courthouse.

[ladjf]

25. "America, the Land of the Free". What a disgrace. nt

[valerief]

27. Horrific example of injustice, abuse, and racism. This is how so many "guilty" black men are made.

No trials and guilty via plea deal. But this kid amazingly didn't let the system do that to him.

[blackspade]

33. WTF?

Not only should officials be fired, but that should be in jail.

This is sick and disgusting.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

34. Not fired, hired.

It sounds like the main problem is an underfunded and understaffed court system.

[blackspade]

35. No, in this case, fired.

And replaced with competent people.

[Chisox08]

37. The joys of being black in America.

I hope he sues the hell out of them. Also the DOJ needs to be looking into this.

[Stuart G]

38. I saw this today, at Democracy Now..

This is indeed an incredible story. I hope the cops get sued, and have to settle for 10 million dollars..or more..