kalief browder has committed suicide. he is the young new york student who spent three years in reconciling jailed without being convicted of a crime. we will speak with new yorker reporter jennifer gonnerman who recounted history in her article "before the law: a boy was , accused of taking a backpack. the courts took the next three years of his life." >> the psychological damage, the emotional damage a wrote about last fall continues to this day continues after the story comes out of course and goes on and on. it is unclear at this point what it is going to mean down the road. amico sadly, it is clear. kalief browder has taken his own life. he was 22 years old. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the united nations say 20 million people, 78% of the population, need urgent humanitarian aid in yemen. that's an increase of 4 million from just three months ago. aid agencies have urged saudi arabia to ease a naval blockade depriving yemen of ba

tonight, here is kalief in his own words. >> you're supposed to be innocent till proven guilty. but the way the system is you're guilty till proven innocent. >> reporter: little did we know kalief browder was already dying inside the day we met him. at the easy age of 22 he'd already learned more about america's criminal justice system and endured more than any soul should everybody have to. that's him on the floor inside rikers island new york city's most notorious jail beaten by a gang of fellow inmates, all caught on camera. he was 17. watch as these teenage boys swarm like piranha over and over. he can't defend himself. the guards can't protect him. at the age of 16 he was arrested and sent here for allegedly stealing a backpack. >> it was like we were beaten stomped by the correction officers. they beatwere beating on me. >> reporter: surveillance video obtained by "the new yorker" magazine which brought khalif's story to light. we see him being escorted. he appears to speak to the guard who in seconds the seen slamming him into a wall then to the ground. >> i cried myself

kalief browder's life behind bars was a nightmare but he refused to plead guilty to a crime he said he didn't commit. >> we were being stomped -- >> it made national headlines as browder tried and failed to recover from the trauma. >> i have the medal hanging from my bed. >> how his mother is working to find justice. >>> on the road with jeb bush. the former governor with dreams of joining his presidential father and brother. >> hi bush. >> david muir is there as he meets potential voters. >> i'm campaigning for president of the united states. >> and fuels up for the long journey ahead. what did he have to say about his family's political dynasty and the secrets of his marriage of over four decades? >>> breaking news. a shooting in downtown charleston south carolina authorities now confirm nine people were killed. in what police are investigating as a hate crime. after a gunman opened fire in emmanuel african methodist episcopal church. tonight, tragedy in south carolina. a massacre at one of the most historic black churches in the country. >> total count at this time is eight deceased

this video where it shows the officer throwing kalief to the ground. you know, that video is obviously shot by a city camera. surveillance camera inside. i was inside the solitary confinement unit on rikers island, and yet nothing happened even though, as you say, even though the video exists, somebody has the watch it. somebody has to take action and make sure that justice is brought in each and every one of these cases, and that's often where things fall down. >> ifill: isn't that the point of having a federal monitor to oversee rikers is about? >> exactly. it's long overdue that we have more outside eyes, you know the federal government getting involved and really paying very close attention to what's going on in rikers island. part of the reason why things got as bad as they did is that people just weren't paying attention, whether policy-makers, government officials, even the media going back several years just rikers was not on people's radar. things were permitted to get very, very bad. >> ifill: the u.s. attorney for the southern district in ne

are there others like kalief browder out there? youthful offender status but sent away as a 16 17-year-old, accused of stealing a backpack. they threw away the keys basically. what a tragic ending when he killed himself. >> i think people need to focus on the difference between jails and prisons. prisons are for people who have been convicted and sentenced to more than a year. jails for the most part are about people awaiting trial or serving short sentences. but jails are not managed and not supervised the way prisons are. they are really law of the jungle. jennifer wrote this extraordinary story in the new yorker about rikers island. i wrote a story in the new yorker about baltimore which had another scandal where guards were running, were running riot. and some of the gang members and the inmates were running wild. people on bail people who were being held in lieu of bail of entail abused terribly by the legal system and people wind up serving in effect longer sentences, just waiting for trial, than if they had been convicted af

but if you knew the details of what kalief endured in solitary it's devastating.devastating to know that this young man had to go through this at that age and was subjected to -- you called it abuse, chris. and i think you misspoke. it was torture. he was tortured. literally by those guards and figuratively by that system that kept him in jail for three years. and the extent of that the damage, eight sued attempts over the last four years. >> he had tried numerous times and been committed to psychiatric care. >> five times in solitary into a 331-day period in 2012 and three more times thereafter. >> and this was not a kid at 14, 15, before he went into the system, who was suicidal, who showed signs of depression. >> no mental illness whatsoever chris. and that's what's so shocking about this story. ask and so saddening about this death. >> jennifer how does this happen in america? we have a constitution, you have a right to a speedy trial. three years without charges is not speedy by definition. how extreme or routine is something like this? >> in some ways his ca

gang members assault detainee kalief browder, a 17-year-old who never should have been there.sturbing security camera footage from 2010 shows the gang beating browder being held back, then barging into an isolation cell and beating him again. corrections officers were powerless. >> this seems like "lord of the flies." what's going on here? >> utter confusion. there is obviously a lack of control. they do not have the capacity and this is not to demean the officers, they are clearly outnumbered. and they do not have the physical capacity to totally protect the inmate. >> reporter: this video was obtained by the "new yorker" magazine which first reported kalief browder's story. two years after the gang beating, this video shows browder being slammed to the ground, his head smashed, this time by a corrections officer after browder appears to say something to him. >> verbal assaults don't count. if we in corrections responded to every verbal statement that was made that was derogatory in nature, we would be fighting every minute of every hour. that is commonplace, it's part of the

so this is kalief before rikers. >> yes.e goes into rikers having no idea he would wind up spending so many years in there, especially in solitary which i want to get to. kamal, you visited him. >> yes. >> i was reading this phenomenal article where it talked about his 634th day on rikers he said i can't take it anymore. i give up. he tried to take his life at rikers. did you notice a decline in his personality, depression despair? at what point did you notice that? >> i noticed that when he would be there for like going on two years, he used to tell me how the guards used to stalk him and how he used to beg for food but they wouldn't give it to him. >> and when they gave it to him, they gave him like half-eaten portions like somebody had already dug into it. it was horrible. >> he was losing weight. did you notice his physical appearance changing? >> no. sometimes i did. sometimes i didn't. >> and how was your mother through all this? >> my mother she was very upset. she was crying a lot and she couldn't take it. she visite

on saturday, kalief took his own life at the age of 22. speaking at a news conference de blasio mourned browder's death. >> there's just no reason he should have gone through that ordeal. and it is a tragedy and it has cut so many of us. it will be to change. i wish we had not lost him. this is a tragic loss, but once his story became public, a caused a lot of people to act. and a lot of the changes we're making at rikers island right now are the result of the example of kalief browder. i deeply wish we had not lost him, but he did not die in pain. amy: you can go to democracynow.org for our discussion of kalief browder's life and death. we had a segment yesterday and have continually covered his case. an immigrant teenage mom who attempted suicide at a private texas family detention center after being denied asylum is being deported. nineteen-year-old lilian olia yamileth has sought refuge with her four-year old son in the south african authorities say olympic and paralympic athlete oscar pistorius is set to be released from prison in aug

those were ignored, like the case in kalief. totally ignored he was hearing voices.hat is a form of schizophrenia. i suffer from that and so does my son. it is a different form when you are isolated in a box and then allowed into the loudest city in the world. it is a different form of attack. people live with these invisible scars every day struggle. write down the block from here three people committed suicide coming home directly from solitary. this is something if we don't address, we are never going to end incarceration. amy: last year interviewed lance lowry, president of afscme local 3807 of the texas correctional employees, the union which represents texas prison employees. the guards. he explained why he had written an open letter to texas prison officials, calling on them to reduce the use of solitary confinement. >> any place someone in solitary, you lose a lot of management control over that person. there's not much more you can do. correcting bad behavior at that point -- it is not a positive step. you don't have the steps and the ability to correct nega

as donna said kalief browder was innocent. he didn't steal the backpack. it's clear from the facts of the first long "new yorker" story, and his problem was he didn't want to plead guilty. >> guilty. >> to something that he didn't do. and so he should have of course, had his day in court. he didn't. >> and that's one of the things that is so stunning. i believe most people regardless of whether they're guilty or not end up pleading guilty just to minimize the time that they're spending in jail. the other piece i want to talk to you about is how can -- how is it sanctioned to throw a man into solitary jail -- solitary confinement, for that amount of time? i mean, he emerged having deep psychological disturbance. took his own life this weekend. i mean how is that sanctioned in any way by penal code? >> well there have been absolutely no constraints on use of solitary confinement at rikers island up until very recently. and the guards who run rikers island have been -- have not been held accountable for the brutality that they have visited upon inmates. eithe

i want to come back to the kalief broward story.s a bill that may have made a difference for him in new york. among the bills still pending in albany is a proposal to raise the state's age of criminal responsibility to 18. and at present, as you said in new york and north carolina, 16 to 17-year-olds are prosecuted as an adult what. what can move this bill through albany? >> bit of horse trading. the senate republicans are holding out for hybrid detention facilities in their communities that would house some of these kids. at best we would end up with incrementalism, which is unfortunate. the problem with rikers is rikers. the fact of the matter is we have a culture there we can't break. particularly or children. we need to move them immediately. all in all we should shut the facility decentralize, have a shah rink the number of prison beds and hold officers accountable. >> we have a policy solution here, but i'm also not naive enough to think that a good policy solution is sufficient. there's politics here. i want to play a sound o

earlier this week, 22-year-old kalief held at rikers island in new york committed suicide. >> it would'ven better if i had a plan. if i had a structured and committed support network. someone who would been through some of what i've been through in the prison. >> 80,000 prisoners are in solitary confinement in the united states. they spent 23 hours a day in cramped conditions with one hour for exercise. the challenges of freight entering everyday life are huge. many people assume that solitary confinement is a quiet place. the reality is that solitary confinement is loud. on either side of you you hear the sound of deterioration of the people around you. to be released onto the street there is a profound disorientation with the world around you. katty: since that report has been filed, the louisiana report agreed to temporarily block woodfox's release. audrey hepburn played holly golightly in breakfast at tiffany's. for many people it is not the plot that the music. in particular, moon river, which was composed specifically for hepburn. jane o'brien will take a look. >> breakfast at tiffa

was never convicted of a crime somehow spent three years in new york city's notorious rikersnow, kalief browder is dead -- he committed suicide over the weekend. >> catherine: his family's attorney says they're suing the city of new york and law enforcement agencies for 20- million dollars. >> catherine: should have been there. omaha officials are investigating shocking allegations of child neglect. >> catherine: prosecutors say a couple kept their two boys-- ages two and four--- locked up for days at a time. >> catherine: the children were found in a filthy trailer home. the boys' 9-year-old sister reported the situation. >> catherine: she told teachers at her school.who then contacted authorities. police had to break into the home to rescue the boys. >> catherine: the parents. martha navarro and venancio vazquez. claimed they locked their sons away so they could gothey now face child abuse charges. >> catherine: if convicted. they could each spend fifteen years in prison. let's mobile. same plan. new phone. or a new plan. and a just in case. add a new line. or three. and unlimited tal

it feels to me like kalief browder could do the same thing.eform for rikers reform, for a broader set of reforms when we're looking at this suicide that clearly was brought on by the trauma of the experience of rikers? >> 65 million americans have a criminal record on file. we have a criminal justice system that is out of control. what kalief browder's story does is to humanize it for americans, and i do think is creates a moment for americans to stand up and realize this sort of criminal justice system can no longer exist in our name. what's particularly useful about the response to what happened in south carolina is the fact that the victims themselves are not calling for the death of this young man but instead are essentially being much more nuanced in their thoughts about what should happen to him, and for too long america has become addicted to punishment and we should really care about what victims want. right? that's what should partially drive our criminal justice system. what do victims want? the current justice system doesn't respond

. >> reporter: and he never did, this past saturday, kalief browder committed suicide.is family is suing the city, the bronx d.a. and the new york department of corrections for $20 million. a former commanding officer in riker's is baffled what happened to this young man. >> i cannot fathem why a person would be in that isolation for that period of time. >> reporter: the prison says that their thoughts and prayers are with his family. the officer that slammed him to the floor is being retrained and that the gang incident is being investigated. since browder's release, new york mayor bill de blasio has moved to limit the number of cases where inmates are held at riker's for a year while their cases are pending. brian todd, cnn, washington. >>> we will be back after this very short break. you're with cnn. >>> welcome back, everyone. the love locks have been unbolted from a bridge in paris but now art is in their place. arabic letters now cover the bridge. lovers had attached so many small padlocks on to the bridge's metal frame, their weight threatened the bridge's stabil

kalief browder's life behind bars was a nightmare but he refused to plead guilty to a crime he said he failed to recover from the trauma. >> i have the medal hanging from my bed. >> how his mother is working to find justice. >>> on the road with jeb bush. the former governor with dreams

kalief browder was a 16-year-old black kid from the bronx. he died last weekend. it makes me profoundly sad to think about what happened to him. he was accused of a crime in the bronx. he was put in prison for three years without a trial. the person who accused him of the crime was not here in the country legally changed their story many times and never showed up. he was never ever tried. he was timely released from prison without a trial considered innocent because there was never a charge brought -- there was a charge but never a trial. in prison he was in solitary confinement for two years. he couldn't make bail. he was from a poor family. he was beaten by gangs in prison. he tried to commit suicide in prison several times. unfortunately, was timely successful last week. the thing is is that should never happen in america. you should never be in jail for three years without a tlil. the sixth amendment says you have the right to a speedy trial. we're going to be the biggest, most dominant party that wins most elections when we say we're going to protect the sixt