The City

“The dysfunction, unbearable environment, and neglect took my son’s life,” said [Freedom Agenda member] Tamara Carter, whose son Brandon Rodriguez, 25, reportedly took his own life inside a shower in August 2021."

Gothamist

[Freedom Agenda member] Loray Hodge said her son — who is currently detained at the OBCC facility on Rikers — told her there are “worms and bugs” in the food. She and other family members are currently sending him about $100 per week to spend at the commissary, she said.

Columbia Spectator

“He’s gotten away with not saying that he doesn’t want Rikers to close, even though all of his actions say that very thing,” [said John Proctor, the communications and digital organizing manager of the decarceration organization Freedom Agenda.]

Queens Daily Eagle

“'It seems that the new chair has the idea that his objective is to prevent the department from being portrayed in any negative way, which is not at all his job,' Sarita Daftary, the co-executive director of Freedom Agenda."

Amsterdam News

"A spokesperson for Freedom Agenda...pointed to the Mayor’s frequent use of a Bishop Desmond Tutu quote about going “upstream” to address Rikers’ problems as an initial, unfulfilled indicator for alternatives to incarceration."

News 12

"The barge is going to close, but what's up with Rikers," said Edwin Santana, community organizer for the Freedom Agenda and a formerly incarcerated person at Rikers and the Vernon C. Bain Center. "Don't just deal with one problem and neglect the next issue..."

NY 1

"I'm glad that the boat is closing. I am glad,” said Edwin Santana, a community organizer with the Freedom Agenda at the Urban Justice Center….[But] "All they're doing is shifting people from one terrible area to another terrible area."

NY Daily News

“The Boat, like Rikers Island, should have closed a long time ago,” Lezandre Khadu, a member of the Campaign to Close Rikers [co-founded by UJC’s Freedom Agenda], said in a statement."

Gothamist

“I'm glad to hear that 'the Boat' is going to close in October,” Santana [a criminal justice advocate with the Urban Justice Center's Freedom Agenda] said. “But I'm saddened to hear that they're going to put the people that are on the boat on Rikers, because no one should be at Rikers."

Queens Eagle

“'We call on the mayor to take every necessary action to do what he said he would do, to do what is legally required, and to do what is right,' Darren Mack, the co-director of Freedom Agenda, said during the rally."