Sharpton Dives Into Rikers Debate

Reverend Al Sharpton is plunging headlong into the debate over the future of Rikers Island.  He hosted a standing-room only town hall meeting at his Harlem headquarters Monday night with featured guests from law enforcement.

Sharpton invited union leader Norman Seabrook, president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association and the new Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark to offer their take on its future. Both oppose closing the facility.

Sharpton said he hasn’t taken a position on whether Rikers Island should be closed, but at the event he offered a heavy dose of skepticism about the possibility.

“Close them and put people where?" he asked. "House them where? And what would the conditions be?”

Seabrook also raised concerns about where alternative detention facilities would be located. He predicted neighborhoods with higher poverty rates like Brownsville, Bedford Stuyvesant and Red Hook in Brooklyn would bear the brunt of the relocation burden, as opposed to neighborhoods with “million-dollar apartments.”

The meeting was framed as a conversation about its future, but stories of Rikers past dominated, particularly the story of Kalief Browder. The 16-year-old was held there for three years while awaiting trial, spending much of his time in solitary confinement. Charges were eventually dropped, but Browder committed suicide last year.

Speaking to a room packed with current and former corrections employees, Seabrook railed against flaws in the criminal justice system that led to Browder being locked up over charges he stole a backpack. At the same time, he defended his officers.

“At the end of the day," he said, "I’m satisfied with the fact that I can close my eyes at night and know that I give my brothers and sisters instructions on being a professional law enforcement officer.”

Earlier in the meeting, as D.A. Clark was pledging to fight for fairness in investigations of assaults on inmates and correction officers, two protesters began shouting at Seabrook. The pair hurled accusations of wrong-doing related to the Browder case until security forced them to leave.

Unfazed, Sharpton promised to host another town hall — to hear from people who were formerly incarcerated.