The much talked about docu-series TIME: The Kalief Browder Story debuted on SPIKE TV last night. It is directed by documentarian Jenner Furst and produced by Jay Z and the Weinstein Company.
As we know by now, Kalief Browder was a young man arrested at the age of 16 for alleged robbery and imprisoned without conviction for three years. He spent three years at the Rikers Island for stealing a fellow teenager’s backpack without actually being convicted for the supposed infraction. He spent about two thirds of his time in jail — nearly two years in solitary confinement. Browder was released in 2013 from Rikers after the charges were dropped. He attempted suicide several times while held in solitary and then eventually took his own life in 2015 in his home at Bronx at just 22 years old.
“What was done to him was a huge injustice and I think people will see his story and realize, man, this is going on,” Jay Z at the Sundance Film Festival last year. “This is not like one case that happened. This is happening a lot for people – especially where I come from in the boroughs and the Marcy Projects and the Bronx and Brooklyn and all these places.”
Browder’s story had made headlines in 2014 when journalist Jennifer Gonnerman covered it in the New Yorker. Jay Z had said that he hopes TIME will “save a lot of lives” by throwing a light on Browder’s case. Watch part 1 of the series that debuted last night, below.
UPDATE: The videos have been removed due to copyright claim by The Weinstein Company.
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