Jay Z recently inked a film deal with The Weinstein Company and today, they announced their first project — TIME: The Kalief Browder Story.
The six part docu-series is based on the life of Bronx teenager Kalief Browder who was arrested and jailed for a crime he didn’t commit. He was imprisoned on Rikers Island for three years without conviction, two of each were in solitary confinement. With no set for trail, he faced assault from both the officers and the inmates, and two years after he was out in 2013, he took his own life.
During the press conference, Jay-Z, Harvey Weinstein, Kalief’s mother and more spoke on the sensitive project in detail which is set to air on Spike TV in January, 2017.
Jay also touched upon the ongoing debate about Police brutalities against people of color. On the specific use of body cameras, Jay said (via Fader):
“When you have compassion for what someone goes through — we’re all looking for a short embrace at time. Judgement is the enemy of compassion. When you are able to identify that…we’re all not perfect, we may make mistakes. All of us, every single one of us. When you have compassion for what someone’s going through and their plight, my personal belief, having the camera on someone creates more distrust. When we have an exchange and it has to be recorded, something’s wrong there, something’s broken. A camera can’t fix a relationship between a person that’s hired to protect and serve and society. There has to be a relationship. There has to be respect on both sides.”
You can watch the half an hour long press conference below.