Police State USA | May 21, 2014
MIAMI, FL — A torturous “punishment” session turned fatal for a mentally-ill prisoner, when prison guards forced him to stand in a tiny shower stall while being blasted by scalding hot water until his skin began to shrivel away from his body and he died. Fellow inmates say he begged for his life before collapsing in the shower.
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Darren Rainey, 50, died while incarcerated a the Dade Correctional Institution. He was serving a 2-year sentence for a victimless crime; possession of cocaine. At the time of his death, he had only one month to go before his release.
Rainey, who suffered from mental illness, was accused of defecating in his cell without cleaning it up. The Florida’s Department of Corrections often comes up with cruel and imaginative punishments for prisoners — allegedly ranging from starvation diets to forcing prisoners to fight so the guards could place bets.
Rainey’s punishment was to stand confined in a narrow chamber, being blasted with hot water and steam, and left to suffer there for over one hour.
“I can’t take it no more, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,’’ Rainey screamed over and over, the Miami Herald discovered from a fellow inmate’s grievance complaint.
The Miami Herald reports that it was DOC Officer Roland Clarke who was on video placing Rainey in the shower at 7:38 p.m on June 23, 2012. He was found dead at 9:30 p.m.
When Rainey’s body was found, his skin was cooked to the point where it was coming loose from his body, a condition known as slippage.
The facility then did its best to cover up the death. Sources say that it was alleged that Rainey had a heart attack, yet DOC refused to perform an autopsy. The official cause of death has never been announced.
Conveniently, the camera outside the shower “malfunctioned” right after Rainey was forced in.
The Rainey investigation has remained open since 2012, with no explanation about why it has taken so long. No one has been charged with the death of Darren Rainey.
“Two years is a very long time to wait to find out why your brother was found dead in a shower,” said Rainey’s brother, Andre Chapman.
When a fellow inmate tried to provide information to police and the media about the Rainey case, he was threatened with punishments of his own. Numerous other inmate complaints paint a disturbing picture of what justice looks like in Florida’s prisons.
Justice seems to be a fleeting concept in a society where people are imprisoned for non-violent, victimless offenses, and housed by sadistic torturers who themselves belong in a cage.