The Death of Kalief Browder

Alternative title: Bloomberg Is a Terrorist.

If you or anyone you know thinks Mike Bloomberg is anything less than a malicious scumbag with blood on his hands, let me introduce you to or remind you of Kalief Browder. Browder was a sixteen year old boy who was imprisoned for three years without trial, tortured, and driven to suicide all based on a false accusation of stealing a backpack. (This lost soul is far from the only person beaten, tortured, killed, driven to suicide, or left to die from neglect in New York City jails during Bloomberg's reign; this was par for the course.)

Jennifer Gonnerman wrote about Kalief Browder's arrest, detention, abuse, and eventual release in the New Yorker several years ago. One more black kid was swept up in Bloomberg's Stop and Frisk terrorism. Her work is well worth the read, so I'll only excerpt this description from Kalief about one of his first days in jail:

"Browder told me that, one night soon after he arrived, a group of guards lined him and several other inmates up against a wall, trying to figure out who had been responsible for an earlier fight. “They’re talking to us about why did we jump these guys,” he said. “And as they’re talking they’re punching us one by one.” Browder said that he had nothing to do with the fight, but still the officers beat him; the other inmates endured much worse. “Their noses were leaking, their faces were bloody, their eyes were swollen,” he said. Afterward, the officers gave the teens a choice: go to the medical clinic or go back to bed. But they made it clear that, if the inmates went to the clinic and told the medical staff what had happened, they would write up charges against them, and get them sent to solitary confinement. “I just told them I’ll act like nothing happened,” Browder said. “So they didn’t send us to the clinic; they didn’t write anything up; they just sent us back.” The Department of Correction refused to respond to these allegations, or to answer any questions about Browder’s stay on Rikers."

Again, I'll reiterate that this was the norm, and not just the abuse; an under-funded legal system, with too much red tape and not enough compassion, is designed to delay and delay and delay, until incarcerated kids like Kalief Browder, fed up waiting for trials (that almost never actually occur), plead guilty just to move on with their lives and get prison over with, even though they maintain their innocence. Full article here:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/before-the-law

Sure, the case attracted a lot of attention, and I do recall Bill de Blasio getting frothed up during his tenure and making some attempt at reform. That should make everything right, white liberals may say! Shortly after, Gonnerman wrote a piece simply called Kalief Browder, 1993-2005.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/kalief-browder-1993-2015

One more life lost because Mike Bloomberg established and enabled terrorism in New York City.

May Kalief rest in peace.

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While I'm loathe to link to the New York Times, this is a pretty good piece on how people held in New York City jails fared, starring terrorist Mike Bloomberg:

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/nyregion/suit-says-new-york-citys-jai...

And Bloomberg thought of the NYPD as his own army, in case you didn't think this disordered fuckwit was dangerous enough:

https://pen.org/press-clip/nyc-mayor-michael-bloomberg-calls-the-nypd-my...

If you or anyone you know is concerned about Donald Trump's racism, the legal system, or locking children up in cages, Stop and Frisk Bloomberg is no different. Same shit. I hope they link arms and jump into hell. (I'm happy to push them in too, fuck them.)

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Mark from Queens's picture

Went and read that NYer article again and just welled up.

Browder's life was turned upside down by a depraved punitive system that disproportionately racially targets young black men and boys (he was 16).

It's too fucking tragic and heartbreaking of a story.

Just want to say thanks for remembering him.

There's a lot more to say but I'm just too exhausted, from the day, the Dante-esque plight of his tragically short and brutal life and the state of politics at this moment.

Let's see this through, comrade. Ain't accepting anything less.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Mark from Queens's picture

And how do you like the dignity of this young man?

Black Florida Progressive Says Bloomberg Campaign Tried to Buy His Support

Michael Bloomberg's general pitch for president is that he is richer, more ruthless, and more willing to buy his way to an election win than Donald Trump. He's been sued a ton for alleged sexual harassment and discrimination, seems to have a frightening and psychotic relationship with dogs, and appeared in Jeffrey Epstein's black book. The #Resistance views these traits in Donald Trump as signs the president is a rapacious pig-man, which it true. But these same traits apparently make Bloomberg a principled leader, at least according to some hosts on MSNBC.

But other Democrats aren't buying Bloomberg's shtick — or, more accurate, letting themselves be bought. Earlier this week, South Florida progressive activist Elijah Manley said he received a call from a Bloomberg staffer who offered him $6,500 per month (plus medical benefits) if Manley would join the campaign as an adviser for "racial justice and social justice issues." Manley says he declined because he's a Bernie Sanders supporter and because he thought Bloomberg was, frankly, trying to buy black support in Florida.

"At first, I was kinda interested and debated providing any resources I could," says Manley, a 21-year-old who rose to local fame as a progressive activist in Broward County when he was in high school. "But once they put a price tag on it, it seemed desperate and not authentic. It seemed like they wanted to basically use me as a token."

Bloomberg's open bribery fucking viscerally disgusts me to the bone. That's just the way these 1% cocksuckers are used to living their lives: buying off any and everything, including people's silence, fealty, owning their lives as playthings, all for a temporary buck. Predation is a core feature of capitalism.

His entrance into the race should be an epiphany about the sickness of obscene money and make the clearest case for the 99% vs. 1% class divide that is the problem above all.

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10 users have voted.

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

mjsmeme's picture