Jeremy Schanche reads a sworn statement by Harold
Hempstead describing Darren Rainey’s murder by Officer Roland Clark.
On 23 June 2012, a black Muslim convict was
tortured to death at Dade C.I. in Florida.
He was locked into a specially rigged shower stall for almost two hours,
in temperatures of up to 183 Fahrenheit.
When he was eventually found, most of the skin had peeled away from his
dead body. An inmate was later ordered
to throw the skin into the trash. This
brutal murder was covered up by guards and other authorities, until inmates,
including Harold Hempstead, succeeded in finally contacting the Miami Herald
newspaper, which broke the story.
Although the U.S. Constitution guarantees free
speech, the reality of life in the Florida Department of Corrections, like its
counterparts in many other American states, is different. Inmates who merely file complaint forms, let
alone talk to the press, can expect brutal retaliation from certain of the
guards. Inmates who stand up and blow
the whistle on brutality, abuse and corruption are taking a great risk to their
own safety, in a penal system that has degenerated into routine brutality,
systematic starvation, and regular torture and murder.
This film should never have been made. People should not be steamed to death in
locked showers, screaming for mercy, dying alone in terror and agony. USA is not the only nation to conceal horrors
such as this, but the USA has a Constitution, a blueprint for justice,
democracy and the rule of law – not all nations have such a thing. Furthermore, the USA is a vital element of
western culture and civilization. For
this nation to live up to its promise, its meaning and its true identity,
something must change.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the Russian author of such
books as Crime and Punishment said “The degree of civilization in a society can
be judged by entering its prisons.” For ‘America’ to ever be ‘Great’ it’s going
to have to take a radically different approach to the treatment of those it
locks up and takes into its power.
This film has been
made in an attempt to publicize the evidence of the prisoner, witness and
whistle-blower Harold Hempstead who is endangering his own safety to bring
justice for the murder of a mentally disturbed black Muslim man, Darren
Rainey. On 7th November 2016, the
prisoner Daniel Geiger died in the custody of the Florida Department of
Corrections. He is mentioned in the film
as the inmate for whom the ‘shower-treatment’ was originally devised. Daniel Geiger was put in the special shower
on more than one occasion. He was also
systematically starved. Regular
food-deprivation was part of the regime at Dade Correctional Institution and
Harold Hempstead is convinced that is has contributed to more than one
death.
Records show that this
prisoner’s weight at the start of his detention was 179lbs, which is just over
12 ¾ stone. However, when New Yorker journalist Eyal Press spoke to
Daniel Geiger’s mother, Mrs Debra Geiger, she reported that in 2012, her son
had told her that his weight was down to 105lbs (7 ½ stone).
Whatever crimes a man
may have committed, the Constitution, the foundation document of the nation,
requires, in the name of the people, that convicts shall be treated according
to lawfully encoded standards of justice and welfare, with recourse to legal
redress of grievance and the free speech to do so. While the rights of the convict are obviously
considerably fewer than those of the free citizen, they are, nonetheless,
clearly defined and enshrined in law, and should, when circumstances deem it
necessary, be vigorously protected by we, the people.
Notes:
1. ‘Affiant’
means the author of an affidavit or witness-statement – which in this case is
Harold Hempstead.
2. ‘C.I.’
stands for ‘Correctional Institution’ or prison.
Here’s the interview I did with Harold Hempstead
in summer 2016 for my paper, The Limpet:
The first of numerous articles from the Miami
Herald newspaper on the murder of Darren Rainey and conditions in the Florida
Department of Corrections:
An in-depth look at Florida’s mistreatment of
mentally-ill prisoners:
George Mallinckrodt is a psychotherapist and
outspoken advocate for the mentally ill, who has written a book about his
experiences working at Dade C.I. Its
central focus is the killing of Darren Rainey and it’s entitled Getting Away
With Murder:
The blog of Harold Hempstead’s sister and
advocate, Windy Hempstead:
Many articles on Darren Rainey, Harold
Hempstead, FDC and more here:
Finally, here’s the written text of Harold
Hempstead’s sworn affidavit of 5th May, 2016, the document read in
the film, which describes the torture and murder of Darren Rainey that guards
and officials tried to conceal.
Convict-whistle-blowers are taking an enormous risk by witnessing the truth
and protecting society’s most vulnerable members. Please help their work by reading and sharing
the evidence. Thank you and stay free.
https://savetheholyheadland.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/harold-hempstead-evidence-darren-rainey.htmlUpdate: 25.1.2017: Over the last couple of days I've been sending out the following email to various people. It reached them all except The Tribune which was bought out and closed and Al Jazeera, who's contact form wasn't working.
Public Message To: Ms Vanita Gupta, Assistant U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division; Katherine Fernandez Rundle, State Attorney, Miami-Dade County, Florida; FBI (Case Agent); Miami-Dade Police Department (Case Detective); Dade County Medical Examiner; ACLU of Florida (Dr. Howard Simon); Stop Prison Abuse Now (Steven Wetstein); Florida Legal Services (Peter Sleasman); Disability Rights Florida (Molly Paris); Florida Justice Institute (Randall Berg); Forgotten Majority; National Action Network (Rev. Al Sharpton); Rainbow Push Coalition (Rev. Jesse Jackson); National Domestic Workers Alliance (Alicia Garza); Black Alliance (Opal Tometi); Nation of Islam (Louis Farrakhan); Miami Herald Newspaper (Julie Brown); CBS4 Miami (Michelle Gillen); WTVT Fox 13 Tampa (Craig Patrick); New Yorker Magazine (Eyal Press); Windy Hempstead; Susan Chandler; George Mallinckrodt.
C.C.: Antonia Farzan, Miami New Times; St.Petersburg Times; Orlando Sentinel; South Florida Sun Sentinel; The Tampa Tribune; The Florida Times-Union; The Palm Beach Post; Sarasota Herald-Tribune; The News Journal; Florida Today; Gainsville Sun; New York Times; Washington Post; Russia Today; Al Jazeera; Black Lives Matter; The London Times; The Guardian; The Independent; Reprieve; Amnesty International; Big Issue; Fulham Football Club, London; Florida Tourist Board; etc.
Brothers and Sisters,
You are receiving this message because your names appear on Harold Hempstead's affidavit of 5th May, 2016, detailing the murder of Darren Rainey at Dade Correctional Institution on 23rd June, 2012. Since Mr Hempstead wanted you to receive the written evidence, I thought it might be useful to have it in video form too.
I am not aware of the current progress of the investigation into Mr Rainey's killing, four and a half years ago, but I feel that since the slaughter was initially concealed by the authorities, it is appropriate now to compensate for this by giving the event some more publicity.
You may be wondering why Mr Rainey's death is a matter of concern to a foreigner - after all, Darren Rainey was a black-Muslim, a drug-user, mentally-disturbed and poor. Well, I don't want a world where people are boiled to death in showers - I want a world of wisdom and compassion.
With thanks to all who are genuinely working for justice.
Good wishes, Jeremy Sch@nche
Newlyn, Kernow, Great Britain.
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