Darren Rainey died in June 2012 as an inmate in custody at the Dade Correctional Institution in South Florida. His story is one of the glaring reasons why we need protections against cruel and unusual punishment, since other inmates claim that he was burned “like a boiled lobster” after spending two hours in a shower that guards had modified to punish prisoners.
After issuing a mind numbingly 101-page report, his death was ruled an accident by Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle and guards were cleared of any wrongdoing. Of course, documents reviewed by Huffington Post indicate that the prosecutor’s report does not contain the whole story. In fact, it would seem that information from the police, the prison and emergency services were all somehow mysteriously excluded from the report, which paint a very different picture of the circumstances of Rainey’s death. Hint: they suggest that Rainey was murdered.
Numerous official photos taken of Rainey’s body several hours after he died were also reviewed by HuffPost. The images reveal extreme damage to his skin, with wounds over his entire body and significant sections of skin missing, exposing red and white tissue and, in some areas, what appear to be blood vessels. A medical examiner who has reviewed the Rainey autopsy and to whom HuffPost described the information contained in the records says the cause of death as stated doesn’t make sense.
Just to be clear—Fernandez Rundle called Rainey’s death an accident resulting from his schizophrenia, heart disease and confinement in the shower room. Yet, one need not be a medical expert to understand that everything described in these photos and documents sounds like someone who was burned to death. Again, none of these details makes it into the prosecutor’s report.
A medic’s record reviewed by HuffPost from the night Rainey died indicates that he suffered burns despite the county medical examiner’s conclusion in the prosecutor’s report that he did not. Lt. Alexander Lopez, a firefighter and paramedic with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, reported that he examined Rainey’s body about 50 minutes after he was found dead on the shower floor “with 2nd and 3rd degree burns on approximately 30 percent of his body.” Also, Lopez notes that CPR was administered to Rainey and that when he arrived his body was “cool” to the touch. Rainey could have been dead up to 30 minutes before his body was discovered, according to the prosecutor’s report.
The report notes the CPR Rainey received and Lopez’s view that Rainey’s body was “cool” but omits the skin burn information. Instead, the report suggests that Lopez believed what he saw were “burns and/or skin slippage,” the report reads.
And there’s more. A nurse working at the facility who was able to examine Rainey’s body shortly after it was discovered confirms that he was badly burned.
An emergency room record from the Florida Department of Corrections dated the night of Rainey’s death also notes substantial burns on Rainey’s body. Britney Wilson, who worked at Dade Correctional Institution as a licensed practical nurse, writes in her report, which indicates she examined Rainey’s body 10 minutes after it was discovered, that he was found with “1st degree burns to 90% of his body” and that his skin was “hot/warm” to the touch.
She also notes that she took his “tympanic” body temperature (via his ear), and it was 104.9 degrees. (A body temperature above 103 is considered dangerous, according to the Mayo Clinic.) These details are largely omitted from the prosecutor’s memo, which indicates only that Wilson observed that Rainey’s skin “appeared red and wrinkled,” that she told a 911 operator that “Rainey’s body appeared to be burned” and that she “noticed some skin slippage.” The most notable inconsistency is that the memo says Wilson tried “unsuccessfully” to take Rainey’s temperature.
But even if the skin wounds and body temperature weren’t enough to convince you, there’s also the obvious lie about schizophrenia as Rainey’s cause of death that should have us questioning the motives of the prosecutor in this case.
“Number one, schizophrenia is a disease; it isn’t a cause of death. Schizophrenia is not a cause of sudden death,” [Dr. Michael Baden, a nationally recognized forensic pathologist who has worked on many high profile deaths said]. Secondly, Baden explained, according to the autopsy report, Rainey’s heart disease is “minimal” and his “heart is not remarkable for a 50-year-old person.” Lastly, Baden said, the indication that confinement in the shower also contributed to his death “does not make sense.”
So once again someone mysteriously dies in a corrections facility and yet no one is responsible? How many times does it need to be said that prisoners deserve fair and equal treatment under the law? Do we even care about the people in these facilities? As long as mass incarceration and prisons are a vehicle for private business and capitalism, this madness will continue. This is a sick social experiment in which poor people and people of color come out on the losing end.