Mark-Viverito: ‘Our system’ led to Browder suicide

Gloria Pazmino

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said Monday that the city and federal government need to act soon in order to prevent tragedies like the deal of Kelief Browder, a young man who committed suicide over the weekend after spending three years on Rikers Island without having been convicted of a crime.

Browder's case attracted an unusual amount of attention after the New Yorker wrote wrote about his predicament and, this weekend, his death.

“He came out a broken man, a broken young man, and our system created that reality,” Mark-Viverito said during an unrelated press conference Monday. “We can’t walk away from that. So if this isn’t a call to action, I really don’t know what is.”

Browder, who had just turned 22, was 16 years old when he was arrested and charged with second-degree robbery, a crime he never admitted to committing and for which he refused to take a plea deal.


http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/06/8569671/mark-viverito-our-system-led-browder-suicide