With increasing talk of a Rikers Island closure receiving a co-sign from the Mayor of New York City himself this week, many who've had their televisions turned to SpikeTV for the Kalief Browder story over the past several weeks, have found themselves weighing whether the late Bronx teen's case might have anything to do with the infamous jail complex seeing it's final days.

From Time: The Kalief Browder Story co-producer Jay-Z's perspective, the injustices and abuses experienced by Kalief at the site has undoubtedly contributed to the call for it to be shut down. On Friday, March 31, the Roc Nation honcho reacted to Bill de Blasio's announcement with a tweet, in which he shared a news headline quoting the mayor, and delivered a thank you to series viewers for doing their part to keeping Browder's story alive. "Kalief is a prophet. His story will save lives. You guys watching and your compassion made this happen. Thank you," he wrote.

Browder was arrested in May of 2010, when while walking home from a party, he was stopped by police who had been riding with a man who claimed to be robbed of a book bag two weeks earlier. Browder was implicated in the crime and denied involvement, but was taken into custody none the less. He was under the impression that at the precinct matters would be sorted out and he'd soon be released, but instead wound up remaining detained on $3,000 bail. His family could not afford to get him out, and thus Browder found himself stuck in the prison system, for what wound up being close to three years, as court date after court date got delayed and postponed, with the prosecution at times claiming not to be ready and Browder's own attorney at times failing to show up.

After a couple of years behind bars, Browder was offered a plea deal that would have promised his release if he only admitted to guilt, but he refused on principle, and was forced to continue floating in and out of solitary confinement as he incurred abuse at the hands of prison guards and fellow inmates. Following Browder's release in March of 2013, his story was featured in The New Yorker and caught the attention of prison reform advocates, celebrities, and lawmakers. He wound up traveling the daytime talk circuit and was interviewed on mainstream news outlets.

Browder's story would eventually be cited for helping ban solitary confinement for incarcerated youth when in 2015 the House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee introduced The Effective and Humane Treatment of Youth Act of 2015, otherwise known as Kalief's Law. On January 25, 2016, President Barack Obama signed an executive order effectively doing away with solitary for juveniles and followed up the order by penning an Op-Ed in the Washington Post in which he named Browder, writing, "In 2013, Kalief was released, having never stood trial...He completed a successful semester at Bronx Community College. But life was a constant struggle to recover from the trauma of being locked up alone for 23 hours a day. One Saturday, he committed suicide at home. He was just 22 years old."

Source: twitter.com