Florida Prisoner Dies After Being Scalded With Hot Water for Hours. Two Years Later, Guards Haven’t Been Held Accountable

Darren
Rainey was a 50-year-old, mentally-ill prisoner serving a two-year
sentence for cocaine possession in the Dade Correctional
Institution’s psychiatric ward in Miami, Florida. On June 23, 2012,
he died after being forced into a shower by prison guards and then
scalded with hot water for almost two hours.

From the
Miami Herald:

While guards who placed him there claimed he was checked
“periodically,” other inmates have said the guards turned up the
temperature as far as they could, and corrections officers
allegedly taunted Rainey and walked away as he screamed in
pain.

He finally collapsed and died, his skin so scalded that chunks
of his flesh had fallen off his body. Afterward, one inmate claimed
he was ordered to clean up the site.

For two years, no
one was held accountable. The Florida Department of Corrections
Inspector General’s office closed the investigation into Rainey’s
death without so much as issuing a slap on the wrist to corrections
officers involved.

In fact,
those officers were promoted, and it wasn’t until The Miami
Herald began asking questions that anything happened with the
case. The department only reopened it after the newspaper
filed a lawsuit to gain access to public documents that the
department had refused to release about Rainey’s death.
Emails released
to the newspaper show that the warden was called to the scene
the night Rainey died and other upper-level management had been
briefed about his death.

Since then, the two corrections officers involved have resigned.
The prison
warden was eventually fired, after being suspended in
connection with the death of another inmate. 

To date, Rainey’s family
doesn’t know his official cause of death:

Rainey’s brother, Andre Chapman, has never been contacted by
anyone from the agency other than the prison’s chaplain, who told
him about his brother’s death two years ago. Rainey’s death
certificate does not have a cause of death even though Medical
Examiner Bruce Hyma said the autopsy was conducted 18 months
ago.

The medical examiner has said he’s “waiting for police to finish
their probe.”

In light of the re-opened investigation, the America Civil
Liberties Union of Florida (in conjunction with other civil rights
groups)  has sent
a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder urging the U.S. Department
of Justice to investigate Rainey’s death and the treatment of
mentally ill inmates in Florida. The letter also notes the
botched investigation from the police called to the scene.

The Miami Dade Police conducted no interviews, failing even to
interview the nurse on duty at DCI that evening who examined
Rainey’s body. Key evidence, including the audio tape of the 911
call, was not preserved, which might have shed light on why there
was a 20 minute delay in calling paramedics to the prison when
Rainey’s body was finally discovered.

Rainey’s death is one of seven prison deaths in Florida that is
under scrutiny.