A recollection of the harrowing events leading up to suicide of 22-year-old Kalief Browder, the six-part docuseries Time: The Kalief Browder Story is a reminder that our justice system is broken. Executively produced by Jay Z, the series will focus on Kalief Browder – a 16-year-old student from the Bronx who was held on Rikers Island for three years without ever being convicted of a crime. Browder spent two of those three years in solitary confinement.
In May 2010, he was accused of stealing a backpack and charged with second degree robbery. Offered a plea bargain that would have allowed him to be released, Browder refused to be vilified for a crime that he did not commit. “If I just say that I did it, nothing’s gonna be done about it,” said Browder, “I didn’t do it. No justice is served.”
Unable to make his $3,000 bail, Browder spent the next three years’ subject to the psychological torture of isolation, physical abuse and imprisonment. After numerous postponements and 31 hearings, his case was eventually dismissed. Browder was released in June 2013 and two years later he committed suicide by hanging. Having attempted multiple suicide attempts while incarcerated, the conditions of his solitary confinement were seen as having caused the deterioration of his mental condition.
Jay Z met with Browder after he read a profile on him in The New Yorker. “I wanted to see him, give him encouragement for those three years of life that he had missed – just offer encouragement and anything I could do for him,” he told the Associated Press.
“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 continued. “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.”
Jay Z teamed up with Harvey Weinstein, the co-founder of Miramax, to help him produce the project also directed by Jenner Furst and written by Nick Sandow.
The six-part docuseries is set to premiere March 1st 10 pm EST on Spike TV.
