Kalief Browder (3:34)

I'm not gonna talk to you and tell you I was a good kid and did all my work. I did do my work, but I did fool around with the girls and the kids playing in the hallways. I was a kid doing what kids did. We were playing around in the bathroom. Sometime get the hallway pass, play around in my friend's classroom or whatever. The teacher be like, get out. I'm like, all right, I'm chill, Miss. I'm gonna go to my class. Stuff like that.

Kalief Browder (3:57)

Flirt with girls in the hallway kind of thing, right? Kalief's life as a high school student ended late one night in May of 2010.

Kalief Browder (4:06)

To be honest, I thought it was just a rout. Stop and search or stop and frisk. When they came out the car, they told me and my friend to put our hands on the wall. And I just thought it was a search. Dad, don't worry about it. You're just gonna go to precinct. We just wanna figure out some things. Most likely, you're gonna go home. I know I didn't do anything. So I said, all right, I'll go to the precinct, but then I'll come home. But it didn't. I never went home.

Kalief Browder (4:35)

Kalief was taken over the bridge to Rikers island, where he entered a whole different reality.

Kalief Browder (4:39)

That whole Rikers island thing is one big misunderstanding. Like, the right and wrong is weird in there. Like, what's right to them isn't right, and what's wrong isn't wrong. It took a whole lot of getting used to in there.

Kalief Browder (4:53)

For most of Kalief's time on Rikers, he was in solitary confinement, usually a 12 by 7 foot cell, for at least 23 hours a day. He got sent to solitary for fighting with other inmates. But once you got there, it was very easy to rack up more and more days. And the worst time of year was the summer.

Kalief Browder (5:12)

They have a vent, and it blows heat for some reason. I don't know why. In the summer, you would think that it would blow out cold air, but it's heat. If you put your hand next to it, it's heat.

Kalief Browder (5:24)

The vents did serve another purpose, though. All day long, inmates had conversations through them.

Kalief Browder (5:30)

I'll fake befriend somebody.

Kalief Browder (5:32)

What do you call it? Fake befriends.

Kalief Browder (5:34)

Right. Because I'm not really trying to become your friend, but I'm talking to you. But then they feel like they're your friend and then they want to talk about all this other stuff. I don't want to talk about that stuff.

Kalief Browder (5:44)

What do they want to talk about?

Kalief Browder (5:45)

Gang stuff or I robbed this person or I shot this person, A bunch of dumb stuff. And I don't want to hear that. And then there's times when they talk to themselves and yell at themselves and bang their heads on the wall all day, and they're very loud. You know it's real because they'll be in an event with you for about a month or two. And they do it all day, every day. So, you know, it's not a game.

Kalief Browder (6:11)

What if it's 11 o' clock at night? That could be going on 11 o' clock at night?

Kalief Browder (6:15)

No, 11. It'll be 4:00am in the morning and the dude will be kicking, yelling to the top of his arms. Then you try to talk to them, but they don't understand what you're trying to say because they're mentally disturbed. So they get mad and then they start doing it more. I mean, I had one dude, he was talking to himself all day, every day. He used to actually have, like, how we're having a conversation just like that with himself all day. That's the type of person where once the blue moon I really listened to and just laughed to myself. Like there was a time when, you know, he was talking about a video game, Grand Theft Auto, and one of the Grand Theft Auto's that he's talking about, I actually played it. So when he was talking to himself about it and the stuff you do in the game, I was actually laughing because he was telling the truth. But when you're trying to go to sleep and he's yelling and that goes out the window, you're like, it's not even funny no more. It's really annoying.

David Remnick (7:12)

Jennifer Gonnerman speaking with Kalief Browder. More in a moment.

Ira Glass (7:16)

This is Ira Glass, the host of this American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what to try and do that we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling, and you get to see people everywhere adapting and making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. If you haven't listened in a while, I honestly think these are some of the best stories we've ever done. This is American Life. Every week, wherever you get your podcasts.

Kalief Browder (7:47)

Kalief missed his junior and senior years of high school. Teenage inmates do attend classes on Rikers, but because Kalief was in solitary, all that he had was something called cell study. A correction officer would slip worksheets under his door and pick them up a few days later.

Kalief Browder (8:03)

The way I see it was like, they put me in jail for something I didn't do. I might as well try to do something. So I used to take the school thing serious. I used to really be looking forward to taking the test. And the CO will come, and then she'll pick up people's schoolwork. And I'm on the top tier, and I call her Miss Come to such and such. Cell on the top. I got work for you. Hey, I'm coming up there right now. Then they don't come. Then you call, Captain. Captain, my work. What's going on? I'm gonna find out. Just give me an hour. I'm gonna come back, I'm gonna see what's going on. Then nobody before. You know, the shift's changing. You're like, dad, you trying to really progress? You really. This is school. You're not talking about anything else. You talking about school. And they still don't even respect it. All day I'm thinking about, dad, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry. I used to actually beg this. Correction officers, they will finish surfing the food, and there's always extras, but it'll be, you know, two, three slices of bread left over. But I'm hungry. So I would ask them, I would say, you know, can I get that bread? And he would tell me, no, you don't want that. Why not? Because it's the end piece of the bread, you know, I don't care if that's the end piece of the bread. I'm hungry. I want that bread. Nah, you don't want it. And they'll tell me, no.

Kalief Browder (9:25)

Kalief endured violence on Rikers island at the hands of correction officers and other inmates. But when I asked him what was the worst part of being on Rikers, he didn't say the violence. It was the hunger. Sometimes if you made a guard Mad when he came around with the meal trays, he'd skip your cell.

Kalief Browder (9:44)

You're just stuck in a cell and you're getting starved and you're hungry. And then at nighttime you can't even go to sleep because your ribs are touching. Literally. How can you not get angry at that? Just being in a situation where you can't do nothing and you know you're helpless, that's very stressful. And you just powerless. When it's high and the walls are sweating, the heat's coming out the vent. You didn't get in the shower past two days, your cell's dirty, and then you read all your books already and you're just sitting there. That's very stressful. Like it's crazy.

Kalief Browder (10:22)

Do you feel yourself changing? Like, I don't know, getting more angrier or short temper or.

Kalief Browder (10:28)

The anger would come when I would be in my cell and I would get starved and. And then when I try to talk to their superiors, when I try to talk to them, they just walk away from me. And then I'm in my cell, so it's not like I could tap his back and be like, hey, I'm talking to you.

Kalief Browder (10:46)

There was one way to get the attention of a captain. When the officers delivered the food trays and picked them up, they had to unlock the slot in the cell door. If you were quick enough, you could shove your arm out through the slot and keep it there. The inmates called this holding your slot.

Kalief Browder (11:01)

Because if you don't hold your slot, you're like an unheard voice. Correction officers will not put you in the shower and they'll disrespect you or do all types of stuff to you. And you can't tell nobody. You'll try to talk to the captain, they'll just keep walking on you. Nobody wants to hear you. You have no voice.

Kalief Browder (11:17)

If you hold your slot, they give you more days on that.

Kalief Browder (11:21)

It depends. Because you got some cabinets that they told you, they work it out with you, like, what's going on?

Kalief Browder (11:25)

Da da, da. Like a regular person, right?

Kalief Browder (11:28)

But then you got some of them, oh, you're holding your slot. I don't care. Write him up. So when you take matters into your hands and it's like a double edged sword, it might work and it might not work. I used to tell my mom stuff the correction officer used to do to me. And it's like I remember the days when I used to be able to come to my mom, be like, mom, I need help. Da da, da. Something happened to Me in school, my mom be there, get me out of trouble. But now I'm in jail, and these correction officers are violating my rights. My mom can't even help me. It's a weird situation. My mom was always able to help. And now my mom was just crying on the phone. It was out of her hands. So it's stressing. And then, especially during the times like Christmas and Thanksgiving when I'm in solitary confinement and I call my mom, but then they're telling me, we're eating this, we're you doing this, we're doing that. And I'm just sitting in solitary confinement for something I didn't do.

Kalief Browder (12:30)

A few times, the stress seemed to overtake Kalief. One night, he tied his bed sheet into a noose and tried to hang himself from his light fixture. By then, he had been on Rikers for almost two years and was still waiting for his case to go to trial. Every six or eight weeks, he was brought to the Bronx to stand before a judge.

Kalief Browder (12:50)

Every time with the court, it was always that side of me that. Telling me, like, you're gonna go home. But then I try not to hype myself up. Cause it hurts when you think you're going home and then you don't go home. That's all I used to cut in my mind. I can't wait to go to trial so I could prove I didn't do it. That's all I used to tell myself. I want to go to trial. I want to go to trial. I want to go to trial. And no trial, no trial. And I used to tell myself, why aren't they ready for trial? I don't understand.

Kalief Browder (13:14)

Finally, after Kalief had made 30 trips back and forth to court, a judge told him that he could go home today. All he had to do, she said, was to plead guilty.

Kalief Browder (13:24)

The first thing that came to my head is for them to offer me something like that. They have to know they wrong. So if they know they wrong, there's no point in taking it. And I told her I didn't do it. I'm not saying I did something I didn't do. She's like, I'll let you go home today. You won't have no probation. She said a bunch of things that sounded good. And it really was tempting, too. It was a lot mentally, because half of you wants to get out of there, and the other half don't want to leave. Just over the strength of a principal, you know. All of that put together just made my head go crazy.

Kalief Browder (14:01)

It's astonishing. But Kalief turned down the offer, even though he knew that if he went to trial and lost, he could get up to 15 years in state prison.

Kalief Browder (14:12)

After I court day, I cried and I said, yo, what if I made a mistake? I always knew that there's always people that's innocent that go to trial and they blow. You know, like, what if I go to trial and I do blow? Dudes that I was, that was fake. My friends in there, they used to tell me, khalif, why just take it, go home. I told him, bro, you don't understand how I feel right now. I didn't do this. I've been here in here 30 something months. You think I'm just gonna take that, it's all okay, and I'm gonna just go home?

Kalief Browder (14:41)

No. So all the other guys on Rikers, they're like, they don't understand what you're talking about, right? They're like, it doesn't make any sense to me, right?

Kalief Browder (14:47)

They call me all types of names. You're dumb. You're stupid. If that was me, I would have said I did it, went home. And I'm not gonna lie. I mean, it did get to me when I used to talk like that. I used to go to my cell and lay down and think, like, you know, maybe I am crazy or maybe I am going too far. But I just did what I felt was right.

Kalief Browder (15:13)

At his next court date, in the spring of 2013, the judge dismissed the charges against Kalief Browder altogether. He moved back home into his mother's house in the Bronx and enrolled in a GED class. But he could not stop thinking about that day in court, how nobody had apologized to him or even acknowledged the fact that he had just lost three years of his life.

Kalief Browder (15:33)

You can't understand it if you've never been to Rikers Island. It's not like out here. Out here, you just live life and go about your business, and there's no living life. There's no life at all in there. It's just a. How it's one big hell. There's no happiness to it at all.

Kalief Browder (15:55)

If, like, we weren't sitting down and I wasn't asking you about this, do you think you would be thinking about it otherwise?

Kalief Browder (16:01)

I think about jail and the stuff that happened in there and the stuff that I've seen in there every day. I just feel as if there's no way that somebody could possibly tell me to just get over it and stop thinking about that stuff. There's no way is that something that People say to you, I mean, some people feel as if I need to get over it, but, you know, it's not easy to get over it.

Kalief Browder (16:33)

In the spring of 2014, Kalief found out that he had passed his GED exam on the first try, and he was ecstatic. He enrolled at Bronx Community College, eventually earning a GPA of 3.5. But his mental health problems continued. He had attempted suicide, and a few times he was confined in a hospital psychiatric ward. On a Saturday afternoon, I got a phone call. I saw that it was Kalief's attorney, and I knew that it was bad news. He wouldn't usually call on a Saturday. Kalief had killed himself. We went to his house that night. His parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles were there, and everyone seemed to be in shock. On the second floor, his father showed me where Khalif had pulled an air conditioner out of the wall, looped a cord around his neck, and pushed his body out through the opening. He was 22 years old. Now, when I listen back to my interviews with Kalief, I wonder, why did he spend so many hours confiding in me, a stranger, about the worst experiences of his life? I know he wanted his suffering to count for something so that other people wouldn't have to go through what he endured. But I also think about how, in the end, Kalief never got his day in court. And I think he really just wanted the chance to finally tell his story.

Kalief Browder (18:04)

My friends that was in school, they didn't know anything because I bumped into a few of them. They would ask me, where you been? I haven't seen you in a while. I told them I was arrested, I got locked up, and I had to tell them the sob stories.

Kalief Browder (18:18)

What do you tell them? Like, how do you tell the short version of that story?

Kalief Browder (18:20)

I would tell them how I got arrested for something I didn't do. Took me 37 months to prove that I didn't do it.

David Remnick (18:39)

Kalief Browder, who died 10 years ago this June, talking with the New Yorker's Jennifer Gonnerman. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks so much for listening. See you next time.

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The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul and Ursula Sommer, with guidance from Emily Botine and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barge, Victor Guan and Alejandra Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Tsarina Endowment Fund.

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Kalief Browder (19:45)

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