Mentally ill inmate locked in hot shower until his skin fell off, death ruled accidental

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The death of a mental ill inmate who died after being locked in a hot shower until his skin was scalded from his body was originally attributed in 2012 to complications from schizophrenia, heart disease and “confinement” in the shower.

However, a recently released autopsy report from the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office has state officials taking a closer look.

The report shows that Darren Rainey was shoved into a small stall with the water turned up to scalding hot after he defecated in his cell and refused to clean it up. As the water burned his skin, an inmate said that Rainey could be heard shouting, “I can’t take it no more, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Two hours later, Rainey was found dead face-up in the shower, his skin so badly burned that it had shriveled away from his body.

“Obviously his life was of no value because he was a black, poor, mentally disabled, a Muslim prisoner,” Harold Hempstead, the inmate who heard his screams from a cell beneath a shower, told the Herald. “The decision shows that black lives don’t matter.”

Following the release of the autopsy report, the Florida Department of Corrections released a statement saying, “The Florida Department of Corrections has not yet received a copy of the medical examiner’s report. Upon our receipt and evaluation of this report, the department will act swiftly in initiating all appropriate investigations and internal reviews.”

The federal government is conducting its own review of the incident in addition to the state review of the matter, which will determine if the correctional officers will stand trial for manslaughter.