Huge crowd packs rites
Venida Browder was home alone with Kalief on Saturday, June 5, 2015 when her son hanged himself from the second-story window using an air-conditioner cord.
“I miss my son. I miss him so much,” a teary Venida says in the final moment of the video.
Kalief had filed a $10 million false arrest and wrongful imprisonment lawsuit in 2013 over the crushing abuse he endured while in custody, and his parents picked up the legal battle after he died.
The city had also been put on notice that a $20 million wrongful death claim would be brought on Kalief’s behalf.
It was formally filed in the Bronx the day Venida Browder died, family lawyer Paul Prestia said.
Venida Browder’s heart was never fully in the legal battle, her daughter said.
“What she really wanted, all she truly wanted, was an apology,” Linares said. “As soon as my brother died, she just broke apart. She deteriorated in every way after he passed — physically, mentally, emotionally and socially.”
In the end, according to Akeem Browder, his mother suffered 11 heart attacks in a 24-hour period — falling into a coma after the first one at roughly 10:30 a.m. the day before she died. After an agonizing night, the family came to the conclusion they had to let her go.
“She kept on coming back, and we were thinking she was gonna defy (the odds) ... She wanted nothing more than for her kids to be at peace,” he said. “The last time ... they brought her back again ... we thought, ‘Enough was enough.’” MOURNERS AT Venida Browder’s teary funeral focused on the good times, not the bad — or the worst. A jam-packed crowd inside a Bronx funeral home heard tales about her sweet potato pie, her love of creating poetry, her days as a vocalist with the soul music trio Lady T and the Shontels. “You’re singing your way into heaven, ma,” her son Akeem Browder, 33, said through sobs Saturday as about 100 friends and relatives bid farewell to the 63-year-old woman. Browder died of a heart attack last weekend, only 16 months after her son Kalief hanged himself in his Bronx home. Her lawyer suggested the mother of seven (inset with photo of Kalief) suffered from a broken heart after Kalief’s suicide. The 22-year-old became a cause celebre after he spent three years on Rikers I Islandl df for a robberyb rap that was ultimately dropped. The young man was kept behind bars for allegedly stealing a knapsack because his family couldn’t pay his $3,000 bail. Finally freed, he struggled to cope and took his own life. Bouquets of pink and white flowers adorned Venida’s casket, and a projector flashed photos of a smiling Browder with her kids.