Ana Kasparian, with The Young Turks, recently featured The Huffington Post's investigation into the June 2012 death of Darren Rainey, a 50-year-old schizophrenic with a heart condition serving time in South Florida's Dade Correctional Institution, and seeming divergences between the prosecutor's report, available evidence, and testimony from witnesses. Inmates who saw the incident stated that Mr. Rainey appeared like "a boiled lobster" after prison guards were said to have hooked the tap from a nearby janitor's closet to a shower, and burned the man "for hours." The jury rigged plumbing resulted in the person in the shower having no control over the temperature, or the flow, of the water.
Ms. Kasparian described Darren Rainey's death as "gruesome," and explained how his skin was sloughing from his body in the wake of the incident. Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the prosecutor in the case, offered the seemingly absurd explanation that this was a normal occurrence following the death of a human being, and the result of decomposition and the body being moved. Employees at the prison were said to have forced Rainey into a scalding shower after he "spread feces" around his cell.
Guards unable to help schizophrenic inmate
Cenk Uygur, founder with TYT, explained his perception that the prison workers didn't understand Rainey's behavior, interpreted it as a challenge, and, fatally, decided that he needed to be punished, instead of seeking medical attention.
The Huffington Post has reported on information available from police, emergency services, and even the prison, raising "questions about the circumstances surrounding Rainey's death."
Among details left out of the prosecutor's report, which were reviewed by the Post, include the transcript of a 2014 interview with Captain Darlene Dixon, the officer in charge of environmental health and safety at the prison.
Two days after Darren Rainey died, Dixon stated that she was instructed to check the temperature of the water in the shower. When a coworker, in the adjacent janitor's closet, turned the water on, it accidentally hit Rainey's hand and was "hurting her because it was too hot." A temperature reading of water at the tap was said to be 40 degrees hotter than permitted, a scalding 160 degrees.
Third-degree burns are said to result from only a few seconds' exposure to 150-plus degree water.
Conduct of prosecutors 'bigger injustice'
In addition to his skin falling off, which exposed red and white tissue, Darren Rainey's blood vessels are thought to be visible in photos. A Miami-Dade Fire Rescue paramedic, Lieutenant Alexander Lopez, stated that Darren Rainey's body had second- and third-degree burns over 30 percent of it. Darren Rainey's body temperature was recorded at 105 degrees shortly after his death, another piece of information that was not included in the prosecutor's report.
Cenk Uygur characterized prosecutors as working as "defense attorneys for the cops," and "derelict in their duty...
to the citizens of their state." He described investigations of local police, by prosecutors who work alongside them every day, "insane." Mr. Uygur stated his view that federal prosecutors should be responsible for investigations of local police. He called the torture of Darren Rainey "horrific," and stated that the conduct of prosecutors is a "bigger injustice." Ana Kasparian called the prosecutor, Katherine Fernandez Rundle, "a criminal."
