On 6/23/12 when Darren Rainey was murdered the MDPD was assigned to investigate said murder. On that same day the MDPD assigned case number : 1206 23238979MDPD as the MDPD case number for the Rainey murder.
MDPD and Miami-Dade County Florida State Attorney records will show that from 6/23/12 till June 2014, the MDPD didn’t conduct any investigations into the Rainey murder.
All law enforcement officials are taught to not postpone investigating a case. Why? Because as time passes evidence is destroyed or lost, witnesses die and their memories get worse. All law enforcement officials know that as time passes the chances of proven the crime decrease. The MDPD detectives assigned to the Rainey case knew the foregoing and they still refused to investigate the Rainey case. Why do you think the MDPD refused to investigate the Rainey case for approximately two years, knowing that as time progress the chance of proving the case decrease? I cannot think of any valid legal or moral reason for the MDPD doing the foregoing. The only logical reason I can think of as to why the MDPD would do the foregoing was that the MDPD detectives assigned to the Rainey case believed they had more important cases to investigate. The Rainey murder wasn’t important to the MDPD detectives assigned to the case. Why wasn’t it important to them? I believe it was because of who Darren Rainey was. Rainey was a poor, black, mentally disabled Muslim prisoner, in prison for possession of a small amount of drugs. To the MDPD nobody cared about Rainey’s murder apart from some convicted burglar serving 165 years in prison. Since nobody in society cared about Rainey’s murder, why would they care about it! To the MDPD detectives assigned to the Rainey case, Rainey was a nobody. If you order the MDPD rules for investigations and the MDPD Homicide Department Standard Operating Procedures For Investigations, you’ll see the MDPD detectives assigned to the Rainey case violated their own rules in not starting an investigation into the Rainey case until almost two years after Rainey’s murder.
Now I’d like to address what actually caused the MDPD to actually start investigating the Rainey murder. If you go to the Miami Herald newspaper internet site and read the first Miami Herald article published on the Rainey murder on 5/18/14, and read all their articles that mention Rainey’s name until about the second week of June 2014, you’ll see it was the media that caused the MDPD to do their job and start investigating the Rainey murder. Yes the only thing that caused the MDPD to do their job and investigate the Rainey murder was the Miami Herald publishing several articles on how the MDPD was refusing to investigate the brutal murder of Rainey that happened almost two years earlier.
MDPD and Dade County Florida State Attorney records will prove that absolutely nothing was done to investigate the Rainey murder from June 2012 till June 2014. Please investigate what I’m saying. Also, please read the May and June 2014 Miami Herald articles and you’ll see how they mention the MDPD not investigating the Rainey case. I believe this should show the people of Dade County, Florida and the World that certain types of people’s lives don’t matter to the MDPD. If you’re poor your life don’t matter to the MDPD. If you’re black your life don’t matter to the MDPD. If you’re mentally disabled your life don’t matter to the MDPD. If you’re Muslim your life don’t matter to the MDPD. If you’re a prisoner your life don’t matter to the MDPD. If you’re anything else your life might not matter to the MDPD.
My friends, I’ve told people over these years that by taking a stand asking for justice for the murder of Rainey, I’m not just taking a stand for Rainey, I’m taking a stand for the value of life for all people. By saying Rainey’s life mattered we’re saying all lives matter. In other words, a quest for one is a quest for all. Please join us in our quest to show that Darren Rainey’s life mattered and that all lives matter.
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:
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:
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.
Update: 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.
STARVED AND REPEATEDLY TORTURED BY FDC –
DEAD IN CUSTODY –
7 Nov. 2016
I first heard about Daniel Geiger from Harold
Hempstead, the ‘Caged Crusader’ of Florida.
He made a strong impression in my mind.
Daniel Geiger was the first one
to be tortured at Dade – or at least, I should say, the first one to be
tortured in the special shower.
Dade Correctional Institution in Florida, USA,
has within its wire perimeter a ‘mental hospital’ known as the Transitional
Care Unit. In this hospital within a
prison, human rights abuses including starvation, and torture have been
practiced systematically, as witnessed and testified to by various people,
including former prison-psychotherapist George Mallinckrodt who worked at the’
TCU’.
Daniel Geiger { J42951} was a severely disturbed
prisoner who was not getting the medical help he desperately needed. His state was such that he never stopped
yelling. He had already been subjected to
the guard’s ‘Three Point Conversion’ game, whereby a prisoner is deprived of
lunch and dinner for three days. Some
prisoners were only being fed two days a week under this regime, which the
guards themselves dubbed ‘Auschwitz’. A
fellow prisoner played a vital role in publicizing this information and I will
be quoting from the evidence submitted by Harold Hempstead in this
article.
Daniel Geiger was the person for whom the ‘shower-treatment’ was
invented. This is the same
shower-treatment that killed Darren Rainey, another severely disturbed convict
in care of the Transitional Care Unit.
These bare facts about Daniel Geiger were taken
from the Florida Department of Corrections (F.D.C.) website:
Incarceration history: Date In-custody: 01/06/2011;
Date Out-of-Custody: 11/07/2016.
Because Daniel Geiger was convicted of a sexual
offence against a minor, the FDC website refers you to Florida’s list of Sexual
Offenders and Predators (which gives the information that Daniel Geiger’s
weight was 179 lbs.) Daniel Geiger was
convicted under Florida Statute 800.04 which means that he either touched, or
forced or enticed a child to touch him in a sexual manner. Here’s the relevant section of the statute:
“(5) LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS MOLESTATION.—
(a) A person who intentionally touches in a lewd
or lascivious manner the breasts, genitals, genital area, or buttocks, or the
clothing covering them, of a person less than 16 years of age, or forces or
entices a person under 16 years of age to so touch the perpetrator, commits
lewd or lascivious molestation.
(b) An offender 18 years of age or older who
commits lewd or lascivious molestation against a victim less than 12 years of
age commits a life felony, punishable as provided in s. 775.082(3)(a)4.”
If we assume that Daniel Geiger was given a fair
trial and found guilty on good evidence, which I have no reason to doubt, then
it was of course right that he was detained as a ward of the state. I have no problem with the state of Florida
locking up child-molesters for long periods of time. I know nothing of his case, only the charge
and the resulting detention.
Another source of information we have about
Daniel Geiger is his photograph. The
human face holds a wealth of information as its purpose is to communicate. When I look at the photograph of Daniel
Geiger I see a man tormented and suffering a private hell. There’s a story in that face and it’s not a
happy one. One side of his face looks
like he’s trying to be tough, while the other looks like nothing other than an
extremely unhappy child. It’s hard to
look into the face of Daniel Geiger and feel nothing. It seems he was a deeply disturbed person,
convicted of a terrible crime and sent down for a quarter of a century. In a house for the criminally insane, he was
known as the most troubled.
Let’s now quote from a sworn affidavit by Harold
Hempstead, who was working as a prisoner/orderly in the TCU at Dade prison in
Florida when the tortures and murder occurred...... (This document was signed on 5th
May 2016 and was published on the Save The Holy Headland blogspot on 22nd
May under the title ‘Harold Hempstead Evidence Darren Rainey Florida Shower
Murder Dade Correctional Institution 23 June 2012’. I have substituted the letter Z for the name
of a convict. This affidavit perfectly
describes the murder of Darren Rainey in state custody and is a vital piece of
evidence that should be widely read – not least by the U.S. Department of
Justice and the other arms of law-enforcement which are failing to take
effective action to bring justice in this case.)
“The Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC)
houses some of their most severe mentally disabled inmates in the Dade
Correctional Institution Transitional Care Unit (TCU). The Westside TCU has 3 wings and 12
showers. The shower in Wing J3 next to
Cell 201 was the only shower with 2 showerheads in it prior to June 26,
2012. The showerhead on the sidewall of
that shower was a PVC pipe in the wall that was hooked to a PVC pipe in the
closet next to the shower. That PVC pipe
was connected to a hose which was connected to a commercial sink. The commercial sink had hot and cold water
knobs. The hot water knob was marked “H”
for “hot” and color coded red; the cold
water knob was mark “C” for “cold” and color coded blue. The construction of this shower, and the fact
that the temperature in this shower exceeded 180 degrees violated the
environmental health and safety manual.
Ofc. Roland Clark was assigned to work wing J3
on the 4:00pm till 12:00am shift. Part
of Ofc. Clark’s work assignment was showering 2 to 4 dozen inmate patients
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Ofc. Clark had approximately 20 months experience with showering inmate
patients prior to January 2012.
In or around January 2012, inmate Daniel Geiger
(J42951) was moved into Wing J3. Geiger
was considered to be the loudest inmate in the TCU. Geigers’ schizophrenia caused him to yell and
make noise constantly. His presence in
Wing J3 made it hard for other inmates to live and sleep in Wing J3. Geiger’s constant yelling also caused Ofc.
Clark to get in trouble with his superiors because of the constant noise coming
from his wing (J3).
In or around January 2012, inmate Z told Ofc.
Clark that Geiger would stop yelling if Geiger was placed in the shower next to
J3-201, and the water was turned on full hot.
Z told Ofc. Clark to tell Geiger that the only way he could get out the
shower was to stop yelling, and making noise and to stay quiet once he was
taken out the shower. Ofc. Clark tried Z’s
recommendation and it worked.
When Ofc. Clark seen that the shower treatment
worked as a punishing devise, he from thereforth used it on the most severe
mentally disabled inmates in the TCU that refused to comply with his orders.”
It is made chillingly clear in this excerpt from
Harold Hempstead’s affidavit, that the unit where Daniel Geiger was
incarcerated, ostensibly a refuge of help for the most disturbed of the
inmates, had degenerated into a place of casual brutality, torture and
murder.
In June 2016 I published an interview I’d
conducted with Harold Hempstead entitled ‘Harold Hempstead, Murder Witness
Talks To The Limpet’. In this, as
elsewhere, he mentions the guards’ systematic practice of starving inmates,
which he believes contributed to the deaths of more than one prisoner. Unlike a typical British prison, where meals
are usually taken in communal areas, many American inmates are fed in their
cells. This makes it very easy, in a
criminally under-regulated penal system, for the guards to simply withhold
meals from the particular inmates they select for starvation. Daniel Geiger was one such selected to
starve. Records show his weight at the
start of his detention as being 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). Between then and November 2016, when he died
in the custody of the state of Florida, he only managed to gain another 20lbs
in weight. Mrs Geiger also reported that
she’d not been permitted to visit or telephone her son for four years and that
he had been given medication to which he was allergic. On finally setting eyes on him in February
2016, she described the skeletal figure
as being “at death’s door.” Within nine
months he had passed through that door.
Tragically, Debra Geiger found her son changed
almost beyond recognition. Daniel
however was so far gone at that point that he failed to recognize his own
mother altogether. Another journalist
tells of a different side of him though, describing him as lucid in
conversation, even when apparently undergoing a breakdown. Her conclusion was that he was bipolar. It makes perfect sense that a man who would
act in an apparently psychotic manner towards the guards who tormented him, was
still capable of rational interaction when
approached with some degree of humanity.
Whatever the exact nature of Daniel Geiger’s
mental and emotional condition, he was a ward of the state and therefore in
law, the care of his health was the responsibility of the state.
The neglect that kept Daniel Geiger on a regime
of dangerously miss-prescribed medication, the deliberate, long-term starvation,
the repeated torture in a chamber of super-heated steam that finally killed
another prisoner – this was how the Florida Department of Corrections
discharged its duty of care towards one of its most disturbed inmates. Daniel Geiger died on 7th November
2016.
From Craig Patrick's Money, Power, Politics: With footage from a prison interview with Harold Hempstead, discussing Florida prison guard's practice of starving the inmates, plus the murder of Darren Rainey
Democracy Now! May 11, 2016 - Whistleblower Exposes Abuse of Mentally Ill in Florida Prison
He's a man who will not be silenced until the truth bears fruit - the fruit of justice. This is a rare man with an incredible story to tell and I feel honoured to be working with him. Please hear his story with an open mind, reflect on what you've read and be ready to take action to help the cause of truth, justice and human rights.
"The amount of witnesses and evidence that exist
proves Ofc. Clark was torturing mentally disabled inmates and that he murdered
Rainey. Affiant cannot think of any
reason why an arrest and prosecution hasn’t been instituted against Ofc. Clark
and etc. since June 23, 2012 with as much witnesses and evidence existing that
proves Rainey’s murder. Affiant prays
that the Rainey’s murder hasn’t been receiving the treatment that it has
received because Rainey was a poor, black mentally disabled, Muslim, prisoner
and his life did not matter. Affiant
prays that the U.S. Department of Justice and State of Florida will not let
Rainey’s killers get away with murder, and that they make a public statement
that Rainey’s life and the lives of all poor people, all black people, all
mentally disabled people, all Muslims, and all prisoners matter by arresting
and prosecuting Raineys killers."
From a sworn affidavit by Harold Hempstead to Ms
Vanita Gupta, Assistant U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, 5th May, 2016.
Jeremy Schanche: Now
Harold, I’d like to introduce you to some folks in my country of Cornwall and all around this old world, readers of
The Limpet newspaper. First of all, if I
may, I’d like to start by asking you your full name, date of birth and
nationality.
Harold Hempstead: My full name is Harold William Joseph Hempstead. I’m
known by family and friends by a short version of my middle name which is “Joe.”
I was born March 5, 1976, in St.Petersburg Florida, and I’m American.
JS: And would you tell us where you live please
Harold?
HH: I’m currently incarcerated at Martin Correctional
Institution which is in Indiantown, Florida, in the United States of America.
JS: And how do you come to be in such a
place?
HH: I was placed in prison when two people told the police that
I told them to burglarize several houses, and pawn stolen property. In
Florida, if anybody tells the police that you told them to commit a crime, you
can be incarcerated like you committed the crime. The foregoing led to me
being placed in prison on thirty-four counts of burglary and one count of
dealing in stolen property.
JS: Now, would you
please tell us when you were first imprisoned on these charges?
HH: I was arrested March 23, 1999, and I’ve been incarcerated
since.
JS: And when are you
due for release?
HH: I was sentenced
in April 2000 to 165 years in the Florida Department of Corrections
JS: Could you repeat
that please?
HH: I was sentenced
in April 2000 to a hundred and sixty-five years in FDC.
JS: You mean to say you got 165 years for
allegedly telling others to rob some houses?
HH: Yes.
JS: That’s absolutely
insane! I live in Great Britain, and I
estimate that over here, a case like yours would carry a maximum sentence of
three or four years actual time served at the very most, possibly less. Effectively you’ve been given a
life-sentence for your alleged involvement in a cluster of non-violent
robberies then, is that so?
HH: Yes. I’m
convicted under an aidder and abettor theory which means I’m convicted for
crimes others committed. Also when they committed the crimes nobody was
home and nobody was hurt.
JS: Well, it certainly
is a draconian sentence, I’m sure it’s hard for a lot of readers out there to
believe that such a thing could happen in a country like the U.S.A. But then again, you have been a
model-prisoner so surely you must be eligible for parole at some point?
HH: The parole system
was abolished in Florida in the early eighties.
JS: You mean to tell me that the State of Florida has no parole-system whatsoever?
HH: Correct.
JS: This just gets
more and more surreal! Now Harold, until
not so long ago you were just another ‘forgotten’ prisoner languishing in the
vast American prison system, but now stories about you and another prisoner
have appeared in The Miami Herald, The New Yorker and The Guardian (from over
here in Britain), as well as CBS Miami Local, Fox News, The New York Daily News
etc.. Why is your name popping up more
and more in global media, what event triggered this media interest in your
case?
HH: When I was
incarcerated at Dade Correctional Institution in the FDC, staff were torturing
and abusing mentally disabled inmates. Staff were starving them and
physically and psychologically abusing them. In January 2012 staff
started using a shower in the Transitional Care Unit (TCU) (which is like a
mental hospital) that reached temperatures in excess of 180 degrees as a
torturing device. They would place inmates in the shower and turn it on
full hot with no cold. It would get so hot in the shower the patients
would have to fight to breathe and not pass-out. Over a six-month period
staff placed five inmates in that shower as punishment. The fifth inmate
(Darren Rainey) was killed in the shower. When he passed out from heat
exhaustion, his body fell over the shower drain. Rainey’s body blocking
the drain caused the 183 degree shower water to rise over Rainey’s body, and
cook his body for approximately 18 minutes. The led to Rainey’s skin
suffering from a medical term called slippage which means Rainey’s skin was
slipping off his body.
For about two years, I submitted grievances and letters to
different people for help with bringing the staff to justice who were torturing
and abusing patients and who killed Rainey. Nobody wanted to help till I
brought the foregoing to The Miami Herald newspaper in Florida. I spoke
with The Miami Herald newspaper in April 2014, and in May 2014 The Herald wrote
their first story. Since then, the media and human rights groups across
Florida have been making an all-out effort to help in getting justice for the
Rainey murder, the torturing and abusing of the mentally disabled at Dade C.I.,
and in trying to make F.D.C. a safer place from the barbaric conditions and
abuses that are so prevalent.
JS: But how can you
die from overheating in a shower? Surely
they are only hot enough for normal washing purposes, aren’t they? Was anything unusual about this particular
shower at the Transitional Care Unit of Dade Correctional Institution in the
State of Florida?
HH: The shower Rainey
was killed in was rigged where only staff could control the hot and cold water
knobs, and the inmate in the shower had no ability to control the foregoing
knobs.
JS: But surely if the
shower was specially rigged up and the guards kept him in there for that long
at that temperature, they should have been charged with killing him, so what
happened to those guards?
HH: Darren Rainey’s
life was not of much value to a lot of people in Florida because he was a poor,
black, mentally disabled, Muslim prisoner. Because of the foregoing,
Rainey’s killers are still free.
JS: If you had not
persistently written to The Miami Herald this story would never have broken,
yet surely, when you live at the mercy of the guards, being a ‘whistle-blower’
must be taking a massive risk. What made
you risk your own safety to stand up for a man who was already dead?
HH: Right is right
and wrong is wrong. The staff who killed Rainey not only violated state
and federal law in murdering Rainey, they also violated the Sixth Commandment
in committing murder (Exodus 20:13). Rainey’s killers should be brought
to justice by our state and federal government for Rainey’s murder. If
they escape prosecution here on Earth, they will not escape prosecution with
God.
As a Christian I am commanded to not murder (Exodus
20:13). Just like the Sixth Commandment commands me to not murder, in the
positive I’m also commanded to protect life and to help the weak. I’m
also commanded to imitate Jesus (1 Corinthians 11:1; Ephesians 5:1) who
was a defender of the weak and of those who cannot help themselves.
All human life has value, which includes Darren
Rainey. In taking a stand asking for justice for the murder of Rainey,
I’m not only taking a stand for the value of his life, but for the value of all
human life.
JS: Would you please
tell us what were Darren Rainey’s race and religion, his age, diagnosis, crime
and sentence please?
HH: Rainey was a black male, he was a Muslim, he was in his
fifties, he was schizophrenic, and I believe he had two years for a drug
charge.
JS: So you believe all
humans have value? Why is that?
HH: Yes, I believe
that all human lives have value. The reason I believe this is if what
determines the value of life is subjective opinions then we can’t pose an
objection to abortion or the killing of any individual. Why?
Because if we object to any killing, we’re saying that there was a
standard that the killer should’ve followed and not committed the murder that
he did. If there’s a standard that should control people’s actions in not
committing murder or certain types of murders, then that standard would be
objective. If there’s an objective standard that controls the value of life,
then that means the value of life can’t be subjective. If it’s
subjective, it can’t also be objective; if it’s objective, it can’t also
be subjective.
As a Christian I believe the standard that controls
the value of life is God’s word (The Bible). Since God is real His word
is real, and He has preserved His word throughout time. In Genesis 1:26,
27 it says that we were created in the image and likeness of God. Out of
all creation humans were the only thing created in God’s image and likeness.
This places us above the rest of God’s creation. Since we were
created in God’s image and likeness, to lower the value of any human life is to
lower the value of God and the value He placed on us. This is not what
God wants. That is why we are commanded to not murder (Exodus 20:13), and
that is why only second to loving God, the second greatest commandment is to
love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22: 36-40).
JS: Now I know yours is a complex case touching on
many related matters and I very much hope we can go into it in much more detail
in the near future, but could you please tell us whether abuse of inmates by
Florida prison guards is common, in your experience and knowledge, and if so,
what are the main forms it takes?
HH: Yes. The
abuse of inmates by guards in FDC is very common. The main types of abuse
that I’ve seen are staff physically beating up inmates; staff paying
inmates to physically or sexually batter inmates; staff starving inmates
by not feeding them; staff excessively spraying inmates with chemical
agent (mace); staff disposing of the personal property of inmates;
and it’s not uncommon for FDC staff to kill inmates.
JS: What you are describing sounds like a
wholesale failure of the penal-system in Florida. Human rights abuse of that scale and
magnitude is surely a matter of grave international concern. Are there any human rights organizations in
the States or abroad, investigating the things you have described?
HH: Yes.
Thirteen human rights organizations have asked the United States
Department of Justice to investigate the barbaric conditions, abuses, and
murders in FDC. Other than the foregoing, the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU), Amnesty International and Stop Prison Abuse Now have been doing a
lot to try and put a stop to the unconstitutional conditions in FDC.
JS: After the convict
Mark Joiner had collected up all the pieces of Darren Rainey’s skin from the
floor of the shower and the staircase, as ordered, what was he told to do with
it?
HH: Mark was told to
throw the skin that he’d found into the trash.
JS: Harold, before I
ask my last question, I’d like to give you my most sincere thanks for giving this
interview to The Limpet and I’d like to tell you that an increasing number of
people around the World are taking an interest in your case and the cause you
are promoting – Justice for the deceased Darren Rainey and justice for all the
inmates trying to survive one of the World’s most brutal prison regimes. I hope everyone who reads what you have told
us will feel moved to use their freedom wisely and be ready to do something to
help these unfortunate prisoners. Of
course, The Limpet has no objection to people being locked up if their crimes
genuinely necessitate it and obviously some criminals are far too dangerous to
be allowed to mix with free society. I
am not criticizing the rule of law itself, but the disgustingly inhumane,
illegal and wholly unacceptable manner in which it is being applied in
Florida. If Florida says it is not the
World’s business, then I say, when you cross a certain line, when you beat,
rape, starve, torture and murder your prisoners on a regular basis then you
have just made yourself the World’s business.
So finally Harold, would you mind telling us how new
arrivals were greeted when they were processed into the prison mental hospital
at Dade Correctional Institution, Florida?
HH: The Dade C.I.
Transitional Care Unit got so bad that in 2012 staff started welcoming the new
arrivals to the Transitional Care Unit by stating “welcome to Auschwitz.”
Notes:
Since conducting the interview, Harold Hempstead has been
transferred to a different prison in Florida.
Temperatures
stated are expressed in Fahrenheit. 183 Fahrenheit is 83.8 Centigrade.
Rainey’s
charge:Darren Rainey was incarcerated
for possession of less than two grammes of cocaine.
Mace is known in the U.K. as ‘pepper-spray’.
Biblical quotations:
Exodus 20:13:Thou shalt not
kill.
1
Corinthians 11:1: Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.
Ephesians
5:1:Be ye therefore followers of God,
as dear children;
Genesis 1:26, 27:And God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness:and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth.So God created man in
his own image, in the image of God
created he him;male and female created
he them.
Matthew
22: 36-40:Master, which is the great commandment in the
law?Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all
thy mind.This is the first and great
commandment.And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself.On these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
I'm Jeremy Schanche, British artist and activist. This blog features my paper, The Limpet. Here I write about human rights, the environment and politics. Please see my articles about Harold Hempstead and Florida Department of Corrections, with more at Harold Hempstead Caged Crusader Wordpress.com.
I have another blog that's completely different - it's where you'll find The Caterpillar, a journal of collage, poetry and surrealism that is remixed as The Caterpillar Dub - the world's first Dub newspaper. Both of these can be found at:
http://yecaterpillar.blogspot.com.
In October 2024 I published my first paperback book of fiction - The Horned Whale or An Morvil Kornek by Jeremy Schanche - available at various bookshops and at Amazon.
ISBN: 9780993490903.
175,710 words.
£15.
Contains the mystery novel - The Kramvil, plus two novellas, poetry and glossaries.
