Miami, FL — In 2012, a 50-year-old
mentally ill prison inmate named Darren Rainey died while locked in a
scalding hot shower, rigged to inflict retribution on prisoners, by
guards at Dade Correctional Institution.
Guards put the schizophrenic man in the shower as punishment for
defecating in his cell. Instead of getting Rainey the help that he
obviously needed, guards took it upon themselves to inflict torturous
punishment for hours.
When guards finally checked on prisoner 060954, he was on his back and dead. According to the original documents involving his death,
investigators noted that he’d been left in the hot steam for so long
that his skin had shriveled from his body, a condition referred to as
slippage.
According to the Miami Herald:
Prison officers took him to the small shower, which had
been rigged to be controlled from an adjoining room, locked the door and
left him there for up two hours as the stall filled with steam. Harold
Hempstead, an inmate-orderly who was in a cell almost directly below the
shower, told the Miami Herald he heard Rainey screaming for
forgiveness.
“I can’t take it no more, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,’’ he
screamed over and over, according to a grievance complaint
from Hempstead.
Had Hempstead not risked his own safety to get this story to the press, no one would have even known about it.
For more than three years, not one of the guards involved in the torture and death of Rainey have been disciplined.
And now, just last week, the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s autopsy
report concluded that Rainey died from complications of schizophrenia,
heart disease and “confinement” in the shower — but ruled that his death was ‘accidental.’
Authorities continue to keep the autopsy report private, but sources close to the investigation told the Miami Herald
that the autopsy concluded that corrections officers had “no intent” to
harm Rainey when they kept him in the shower for up to two hours.
Apparently Rainey’s cries of agony and apologies, which compelled
other inmates to blow the whistle, were not because he was being harmed.
“I have not reviewed the M.E. report, but it defies logic
that the conclusion is that Darren Rainey’s death was accidental,” said
Howard Simon, the ACLU’s executive director in Florida. “This is why we
called for and still need an independent investigation by the U.S.
Department of Justice.”
The Dade Correctional Institution is no stranger to corruption and has been in the news numerous times in recent years for extreme cases of prisoner abuse.
According to local sources, 40-year-old Richard Mair hung himself
from an air conditioning vent and left a suicide note claiming that he
and other inmates were sexually and physically abused by guards on
numerous different occasions.
According to the State Attorney’s office, they must now decide
whether or not to bring charges against the officers involved. However,
judging from the sheer length of this investigation and the recent
‘accidental’ death claim, it is unlikely that anyone will be held
accountable.
The Free Thought Project’s attempt to get a statement from the State Attorney’s Office was declined.
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