Stop Prison Abuse Now
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Background Information on Our change.org
Petition Seeking an Independent Investigation of Darren Rainey’s Death
On March 17, 2017,
Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine
Fernandez Rundle released her findings on the death of Darren Rainey, in 2012. Mr. Rainey was an African-American inmate
diagnosed with schizophrenia who was serving a two-year sentence for possession
of less than two grams of cocaine. He died in a scalding shower at Dade
Correctional Institution, only four months before his release. Inexplicably,
his death was not treated as suspicious and no investigation was conducted until
2014, when an inmate witness contacted The Miami Herald, which wrote the first
story about his untimely death.
Ms. Rundle decided not
to charge anyone in his death, which she ruled accidental. Gruesome autopsy photos and witness accounts by
inmates, EMT first responders, and nursing staff offer ample evidence that Mr.
Rainey’s death was the result of being burned by excessively hot water. He had
been placed in a shower specially rigged so that the water could only be
controlled by correctional guards from an adjacent closet. The prison has a
documented history of systemic maltreatment and abuse of inmates with mental
illness.
Ms. Rundle chose instead
to rely on the findings of the Medical Examiner’s report, mysteriously issued
more than four years after Mr. Rainey’s death. This report concluded that Mr.
Rainey died from “Schizophrenia, Atherosclerotic Heart Disease and Confinement
Inside a Shower Room.” According to the report, the huge areas of skin that
peeled off from his body was the result of “slippage of the skin” that occurred
after his death.
This conclusion has not
been supported by independent pathologists consulted by The Miami Herald, which
broke this story and has tirelessly pursued it through a ground-breaking investigative series.
The nature of skin damage can be assessed by microscopic tissue examination,
yet the Medical Examiner’s report was based on just a single sample. Ms.
Rundle refuses to allow independent testing, and has reneged on her previous
agreement to let independent pathologist Dr.
John Marracini, one of the two pathologists consulted by the Herald, do an
independent review of the evidence.
Stop Prison Abuse Now (SPAN) has started a petition to Ms. Rundle,
urging that she consent to an independent review of all evidence, so that the
truth of Darren Rainey’s death can finally be known. SPAN is a coalition of
organizations and concerned individuals committed to protecting the rights of
Florida's prisoners, with a special emphasis on those with mental illness.