Browder, 22, awaited trial for years in New York’s Rikers Island prison from the age of 16 for allegedly stealing a backpack, a charge that was eventually dropped

A 22-year-old man who, as a teenager, was held for almost three years without trial in New York’s Rikers Island prison, killed himself on Saturday at his home in the Bronx.

Kalief Browder became the face of a movement to reform the prison after the New Yorker detailed how he was held for almost three years without trial. He was accused of stealing a backpack, a charge he denied.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kalief Browder. Photograph: YouTube

He spent the next three years awaiting trial amid repeated court delays before New York prosecutors dropped the charges against him in 2013.

“I think what caused the suicide was his incarceration and those hundreds and hundreds of nights in solitary confinement, where there were mice crawling up his sheets in that little cell,” Browder’s attorney Paul V Prestia told the LA Times on Sunday.



“Being starved, and not being taken to the shower for two weeks at a time … those were direct contributing factors … that was the pain and sadness that he had to deal with every day, and I think it was too much for him.”

Browder’s mother found him hanged at his home on Saturday. As recently as this spring surveillance videos showing Browder being beaten by prisoners and guards at Rikers Island led to renewed calls for reform.

The man’s story became a cause célèbre, attracting calls for reform from high-profile Republican senator and presidential candidate Rand Paul and talkshow host Rosie O’Donnell, among others. Paul tweeted his condolences on Sunday.

On Monday, New York City mayor Bill De Blasio said he and his wife, Chirlane, were “deeply saddened” by Browder’s death. “There is no reason he should have gone through this ordeal,” the mayor said in a statement.

Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) Kelley and I extend our most heartfelt sorrow and deepest condolences to the family of Kalief Browder. May his soul rest in peace.

Though Browder attended Bronx Community College for some time after the New Yorker detailed his story in October 2014, his mental health appeared to worsen in recent months, reporter Jennifer Gonnerman and his attorney said. Browder had previously attempted suicide while imprisoned at Rikers Island.

“When you go over the three years that he spent [in jail] and all the horrific details he endured, it’s unbelievable that this could happen to a teenager in New York City,” Prestia told the New Yorker. “He didn’t get tortured in some prison camp in another country. It was right here!”