By C1 Staff
NEW YORK — Recently released videos show the violence experienced by a 16-year-old inmate who was incarcerated at Rikers Correctional Facility while awaiting trial for allegedly stealing a backpack.
The New Yorker reports that Kalief Browder was arrested in 2010 for the theft, and put in Rikers while his case was repeatedly delayed by the court system.
In the first video clip, Browder is shown being escorted to the showers by a correctional officer. After he is handcuffed and released from his cell, the officer takes Browder’s elbow and begins to lead him along a walkway. Browder says something to the officer, and the officer begins to slam Browder against walls, eventually throwing him to the floor.
“I just felt him tighten a grip around my arm,” Browder said of the event, after reviewing the footage for the first time. “In my head, I was wondering why he tightened it so tight, like he never usually does, and that’s when he swung me and kept trying to slam me.”
Department of Corrections reports say that Browder was involved in a use of force with DOC staff and that he suffered a facial contusion. A medical clinic Browder was treated at reports that Browder injured himself in an “alleged attack by staff” and “hitting his face into the shower wall.”
The DOC says it is currently investigating the video, saying that the incident involving Browder occurred prior to Commissioner Joseph Ponte’s arrival.
The second video shows Browder ending up in a room full of gang members, of which he is not a member. A gang leader spat in Browder’s face, and Browder retaliated against him, punching him in the face.
This action’s fallout is recorded on the video, showing ten other teenage inmates striking Browder as two correctional officers struggle to control the chaos.
DOC paperwork about the incident called it a “multiple inmate fight,” though it allegedly did not detail how the inmate ended up in the same space as members of a different gang.