Well dear friends, The Limpet newspaper is switching from monthly to occasional publication.The Limpet ran as a monthly from September 2008 till August 2019, running to 204 issues.The paper initially got started as a vehicle to publicize Cornwall Council’s disastrous plan to destroy a small beach and area of tidal rocks at the heart of Penzance.The business consortium involved included H.R.H. Prince Charles, Duke of Cornwall and future King of England.After rallying popular opposition to this plan, working in partnership with a small group of local activists, we won the case and defeated the opposition.A small beach was saved and you can visit it to this day.We saved the Holy Headland (Cornish: Pen Sans) and The Limpet was deeply happy to have played a part in that struggle.
After the police-slaughter of Ian Tomlinson in London I wrote extensively on police-violence and murder and covered a variety of cases in Britain and abroad.The Limpet brought attention to the Lao Gai system of slave-labour camps in China, producing cheap goods for the western market and also the barbarism of organ-harvesting that continues in the Chinese state.
The Limpet’s RESIST CARDIAC ARREST campaign got started in 2010 and has robustly campaigned for a moratorium on tasers and weapons of conducted energy.The RCA campaign succeeded in getting an admission from the British Government that tasers are lethal weapons.This contradicts the aggressive strategy of Taser International, the manufacturing company, that spent millions in suing coroners who linked fatalities to tasers in USA.
After making contact with Florida’s “Caged Crusader,” Harold Hempstead, The Limpet largely concentrated on amplifying Hempstead’s advocacy for justice for Darren Rainey, a mentally-disabled black Muslim man who was steamed to death in a specially adapted torture-shower in Dade prison, Florida, back in 2012.Harold was awarded for bravery by the American Civil Liberties Union due to the risks he took to reveal the story of Darren Rainey.He was himself an inmate at Dade, Florida’s most lethal prison and his life was in the hands of guards who themselves described the place as “Auschwitz.”I’ve written more on this topic than any other, as the contemporary horrors and injustices of the US penal system represent a vast human rights crisis that gets barely any coverage in the big media.Harold is serving 165 (one hundred and sixty five) years without parole for his part in some non-violent burglaries.Overwhelming evidence exists to prove that his trial was conducted illegally and his case really is one of the most outrageous distortions of justice that you could ever hear of.Please consult the numerous articles on Harold Hempstead and Darren Rainey and also check out his book, that talks about the system we set up whereby he would send me messages from prison to publish from Britain.In my position as a ‘foreigner’ I was able to help him with communications without fear of intimidation and revenge by the corrupt authorities of the State of Florida. Working with Harold has definitely been the high point of my journalistic efforts and I regard him as a man of immense integrity, vision and courage.
I deeply recommend his book, Department of Corruption, and also the website I edit for him: Harold Hempstead Caged Crusader.They are both scrupulous and encyclopaedic archives of evidence proving a miscarriage of justice in the Rainey case and also throw light on Harold’s own background as a childhood Confidential Informant for Florida police departments and how he was set up and exploited from an early age.
There will definitely be more publications on Harold Hempstead on this channel.
Recently The Limpet has given coverage to the planetary crisis we all now face in the form of Climate Chaos.I am convinced that cooperation and open communication between all of us is absolutely vital for humanity to have a chance of literally saving the world before it’s too late.Only democratically accountable and transparent activism can succeed in this, the ultimate theatre of action, and it’s natural for any movement to attract egotistic ‘leader-types’ but the movement must evolve beyond that level if it is to attract mass-participation.The Limpet recommends that everyone, meaning everyone, starts germinating and raising trees for guerrilla-gardening.Don’t leave it to others to plant the trees we need, start your own little forest on your window-sill.
Limpets will still appear when the tides are right.
Wishing you all peace and happiness.A better world is in our hands if we dare to reach for it.
Jeremy Schanche, Editor, The Limpet – nature, democracy, free speech – Since 2008.
Why not dump the bloated Google and adopt the tree-planting ECOSIA instead? For every 45 searches you do, they plant a tree! Ecosia does everything the more famous search-engine does, but it also plant trees! The world is in desperate need of trees! It takes no brain to grasp such a concept...
Well, after all these years of blogging, sometimes I feel like just boiling it down to the essentials and nothing could be more essential than thinking for yourself.
Fear. There's a lot of it about. Are you a sufferer? Don't suffer in secret. Don't suffer at all. Attack your fear. Destroy it. Don't spread fear. Spread inspiration. Spread upliftment. Spread joy. Don't let fear destroy. Let life afirm. Let fear wilt - or simply explode the fear-mentality!
Email To: Derek Thomas MP for St Ives and Scilly 26:2:2019
Dear Derek
Re: AUTOMATIC LEGAL AID FOR STATE-BEREAVED FAMILIES
Is it fair that families of those killed by police have to go through an agonizing process of form-filling and means-tests to apply for legal-aid when in these circumstances a policeman or woman accused of killing a citizen automatically gets the best barristers to represent them at the cost of thousands of pounds of tax-payer-s money~
Surely not -
I wonder if you will support a move to bring equality - compassion and proper justice to this situation~
There is now an active campaign to grant the same automatic legal representation to State-bereaved families as is enjoyed by police who take lives - Surely it is a matter of basic justice that traumatized families should get the same degree and quality of assistance as police constables who take lives -
I ask you sincerely to lend your strongest support to this campaign and to show your support for justice in our land-
The Cow is worse than the Car - Combined emissions from the meat and dairy industry outweigh the emissions from all transport - cars - lorries - ships - trains - planes - motorcycles etc etc -
I think most people are aware of the recent announcement from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that we have a mere 12 year duration of time in which to redress the climate breakdown and keep global temperature rise to one point five degrees -
Failure to do this will have catastrophic results for the immediate future of the Earth and all species - At the moment the World is on target to fail spectacularly at this golden opportunity -
Therefore pressure must be brought on the governments of the World to pursue policies which will protect - not further endanger - our common (and only) planet -
Nothing short of a cultural upheaval will achieve such fundamental change as is needed - as it is our present culture that has so degraded our planet -
We must all make changes in our lives - Move away from the internal combustion engine - Don-t waste food - conserve electricity and fuel - consume less - go vegan - there are many many ways in which we can make a contribution but perhaps the biggest contribution is getting the governments to do the right thing - a difficult problem as naturally the capitalist governments are in the pockets of the biggest producers of capital - the petrochemical industry - the meat industry - the arms industry etc etc -
We basically change the culture of the world or the world rapidly degrades into an unlivable hell-planet - Surely worth giving up the odd luxury to have such a beautiful world under our feet - - -
The state should be protecting the mentally ill - not using the police to kill them and the prisons to torture them in as they do in Florida and so many other states and nations around the world -
Anybody can suffer an emotional crisis and at least in the so-called more "civilized" world we supposedly have systems in place to help - protect and support the most vulnerable - those going through the frightening and traumatic experience of mental illness -
Anybody can go through a temporary or long-term period of confusion - pain and disorientation - perhaps to the level of psychosis which could include auditory or visual hallucinations - There are many causes for these types of crisis - Particularly in the developed Western world stress is so common as to be an almost universal disease - Suicide is the number-one killer of the 18 - 30 age-group in both Britain and the USA - To me this suggests a cultural sickness that affects societies - not just individuals -
In other words a healthy culture - a healthy socially-integrated life in a positive environment would not produce runaway suicide figures - let alone the other types of crime and distress that result from the dehumanization of our daily lives in the name of progress - modernity - security - money and material goods -
In these highly stressed conditions it is hardly surprising that so many people reach crisis-point - particularly with so many financial worries - austerity - lack of opportunity - bad-diet - vast social pressure to conform to somebody-s idea of a standard - all these and many other factors contribute to emotional crisis and when it comes it can often be a public incident - a public outburst - and this is where the police all too often get involved with tragically fatal results due to over-reaction to people who are not a genuine threat in many cases -
Having been writing about and campaigning on this issue for many years it is still deeply distressing to discover the extent to which people are dying when police intervene in what is commonly termed a mental-health crisis - All too often the police use over-kill tactics - particularly if the "suspect" or "patient" has picked up any kind of weapon - no matter how ineffective it might be - the police frequently shoot first - whether with taser or gun - and ask the questions afterwards -
My correspondence with the British Government over the issue of taser goes back to 2010 - Just recently the MP for North Norfolk stated that the UN regard taser-usage as potential torture - This is the first time I have heard of an MP making such a statement so it is very encouraging that someone in his position is listening to the UN - After all - we did draft the treaty against torture in the 80s so surely our nation should live up to the spirit and meaning of the convention -
With my own MP refusing to talk to me on this issue - despite a filmed promise to do so! - and the Chief Constable for Cornwall and Devon Police also failing to deliver a promised response on this issue - it is hard to have much faith in the credibility of the British democracy -
Help with depression - suicidal feelings and other problems: The Samaitans
Pushing through the market square, so many mothers sighing News had just come over, we had five years left to cry in News guy wept and told us, earth was really dying Cried so much his face was wet, then I knew he was not lying From "Five Years" by David Bowie - 1972
The latest warning from the World-s most eminent climate scientists is by far the most dire yet and essentially says that we have 12 years to contain temperature-rise to a one and a half degree Celsius increase or face harrowing consequences for natural life on this planet (and that includes us!)
There-s a lot of pessimistic talk in the media along the lines that people are too divided and individualistic to tackle this threat to our future-survival - Obviously if we give in to a negative attitude to this terrible problem we will have no chance whatsoever of tackling it - Alternatively - with serious cooperation and effort from all of us - there is still time to limit the damage mankind has already done to the planet Earth -
It-s time for us all to take an extremely good look at the way we live and start making the changes necessary to keep down the temperature-increase to one point five - if we want to leave our kids a planet that is not tragically degraded and sick beyond hope of healing -
In a related issue Britain-s Guardian newspaper is suggesting that Stratospheric Aerosol Injection "might be used in the future" to combat climate-change - This statement is disingenuous however as in reality large areas of the World are already subject to this highly controversial procedure commonly called "chem-trails" - they can be seen over Cornwall and numerous areas of Britain and elsewhere - See The Limpet-s previous coverage of this issue here
Among the many things you can do to personally combat climate-change are using less energy at home - for instance turn off lights when not in use - - Drive as little as possible - give lifts when you do and share transport - - Avoid wasting food - grow as much of your own food as possible - - Buy and consume as little as possible - - Germinate and raise some trees - you don-t need land to do this - there is always somewhere to plant them - just make sure they can flourish undisturbed - - Have discussions with everyone you know about these issues and keep them in the public-focus - - Best of all - think up your own ways and methods -
After years of training in a secret lokation in North East Tibet The Limpet returns to the West and goes underground to infiltrate Babylon-system and spread revolution and expose injustice -
Katherine Fernandez Rundle, Dade County, Florida State Attorney since '93
In prior blogs I mentioned how I believed the Dade County Florida State Attorney refused to prosecute Rainey’s killers because Rainey was a poor, black, mentally disabled, Muslim prisoner and to the Dade County State Attorney Rainey’s life wasn’t worth how much it’d cost to prosecute his killers. I’m in prison with no access to the internet and limited access to a telephone. I believe if I can prove the Dade County Florida State Attorney has no history of refusing to prosecute law enforcement officials for unlawfully killing Caucasians or Christians, it will support my position more, that a motivating factor in why the Dade County State Attorney didn’t prosecute Rainey’s killers was because Rainey was a poor, black, mentally disabled, Muslim prisoner. If I had access to the internet and unlimited access to a phone, I could thoroughly research this issue within 2 or 3 hours. Since I don’t have the foregoing, I don’t want you to think I haven’t researched this issue. Those who know me fairly good, know that I have a strong belief that nobody should ever assert something without any evidence. If I was to assert something based on no evidence, I’d be engaging in unsupported speculation. In other words, giving you my opinion based on no evidence. Now it is obvious that I can only speak based on the knowledge that I have. As long as my statements are only consistent with what I know / the level of knowledge that I have, then I cannot be charged with lying - something all Christians and people with morals should strive against doing. If I make assertions based on what I know and somebody comes along who knows more than me on said subject and presents evidence that my assertions are not accurate, I haven’t proven to be a liar. However, it would be proven that person has knowledge I didn’t have prior to making my assertion.
I have taken the position that one of the motivating factors in why the Dade County State Attorney has decided to not prosecute Darren Rainey’s killers is because Darren Rainey was a poor, black, mentally disabled, Muslim prisoner. I also believe there’s substantial evidence to prove murder in the Rainey case.
I’m asking for the help of those who are reading this blog. Will you please search the internet and provide me with one newspaper article from the Miami Herald, Miami Times or any respected newspaper that present facts that show (1) That since Katherine Fernandez Rundle has been the Dade County Florida State Attorney, her office has refused to prosecute a law enforcement official for unlawfully killing a Caucasian or Christian who was unarmed and not a physical threat to the police or others. (2) The Caucasian or Christian had to be unarmed and not a physical threat to police or others. If the Caucasian or Christian was armed or a physical threat to others then law enforcement was to some degree justified in the action they took. In the Rainey case the government admits that Rainey was unarmed and not a threat to police or others. (3) The newspaper article must specifically reference how the Dade County Florida State Attorney has refused to prosecute a law enforcement official for unlawfully killing a Caucasian or Christian. The evidence that I’m specifically needing is this: (1) Evidence that the law enforcement official who unlawfully killed the Caucasian or Christian wasn’t prosecuted by the Dade County State Attorney’s Office since Katherine Rundle has been the Dade County, Florida State Attorney. (2) Evidence that the person killed was a Caucasian or Christian. (3) Evidence that the person killed was unarmed and not a physical threat to police or others. It should be noted that if there was any evidence showing that law enforcement believed the Caucasian or Christian was armed (even though he or she wasn’t) then law enforcement was still to some degree justified in the force they used. As long as they had some evidence to believe such. I know you might disagree with me, but as a Certified Paralegal I know Florida law doesn’t. If you can’t find me an article from a respected newspaper or even a respected magazine that can provide the above evidence, I’ll also accept any State or Federal document that can provide the above evidence. Please look at what I’m specifically requesting, because if you provide me with anything other than what I’m specifically requesting, I won’t be able to use it / it won’t be helpful. I need facts/evidence. Not opinions. I really want those who are reading this to please look at how I construct my words in this blog to try and get help at finding specific evidence to support a specific position. I believe if you research you won’t find any articles by respected newspapers or magazines or any State or Federal documents on all of the above. Keep in mind I need all of what I’m requesting - not just some of it. The reason why I’m being so specific is because I need facts/evidence to present to the Department of Justice and Civil Rights leaders. I can’t present opinions/speculation to them. I want to read anything you’d like for me to read concerning the matters herein. Please feel free to provide Jeremy with any articles, documents, etc. you’d like for me to read. If you don’t provide me with what I requested herein, I’ll take the position that nothing could be found on the internet. I strive to know the facts/evidence and to never present unsupported speculation/opinions. I ask you, will you please help me see if there’s any articles by respected newspapers or magazines or any State or Federal documents on the internet that provide the specific facts/evidence listed herein that shows the Dade County State Attorney’s Office under Katherine Rundle’s leadership has refused to prosecute a law enforcement official for unlawfully killing a Caucasian or Christian? Please look because I believe you won’t find what I’m looking for. Also please understand that by encouraging you to help me research, if you don’t find what I’m specifically looking for, you’ve aided me in proving that a motivating factor in why Katherine Rundle has decided to not prosecute Rainey’s killers was because Darren Rainey was a poor, black, mentally disabled, Muslim prisoner and to Ms. Rundle his life wasn’t worth how much it’d cost to prosecute Rainey’s killers.
May Day Report – Penzance, Cornwall, 1st
May, 2017
Well, as planned, I kicked off Europe’s first
protest for Darren Rainey today, in a very modest way. This time last year, I organized a demo
outside Penzance Hospital, in support of the National Health Service – those were days of Momentum, before it played
out – the spirit was weak but the flesh was weak. Luckily this – the fizzling of momentum, left
me free to devote myself to helping Harold Hempstead with his work on the Darren Rainey case and other matters relating
to the Florida Department of Corrections.
It was a chilly and windy day, overcast and
threatening storm. The town was nearly
deserted – it’s what the English call a ‘Bank Holiday’ which I think all other
nations call a public holiday. We are
not ruled by banks in Britain, don’t get me wrong. Anyway, it’s the kind of day when people go
elsewhere. They go to other places than
the centre of Penzance, which is where I was going. Well, it wasn’t quite empty, truth is, the
centre of town has been taken over by a group of street-folk, whom I have
nothing against, though they can be a tad noisy at times. A fella came up to me, his voice subdued,
opiated; his face blenched white, eyes
pinned. He took a leaflet and mumbled
something, seemed like a nice fella really, just poppied-out somewhat. Well I stood there with my three cardboard
signs that I’d stayed up most of the night making – they still looked very
home-made – each one was double sided – I’d been thinking of doing a ‘Subterranean
Homesick Blues’ number with the shuffling sign-boards. It was very windy, as I said and the
cardboard was flapping a bit. My plan
was to regularly shuffle the signs, I was holding all three so I could simply
turn over the one at the front, then the next one, etc.. This was to be my ‘act’, whilst I also held a
handful of small flyers, hoping to entice punters with these strategies. Dumb old me, I’d forgotten what a miserable
bunch of shallows the British Punterhood actually is. As the occasional minute trickle of citizens
walked by – many of them obviously avoiding me – I stepped up, offering a flyer
and, as I imagined, cordially inviting them to ‘Oppose Torture’ or even go so
far as to ‘Stand up for Human Rights.’
Well, let me explain something to those of you
who live outside Britain or are not familiar with our national psyche… We’ve been conditioned over here to believe
that it’s alright to be cold and unhelpful, as long as it’s done under a veneer
of politeness. Trouble is, this strategy
wears a little thin in some situations and is a poor substitute for human warm,
or even direct honesty. So I’m there
going ‘Human Rights in America!’ and trying to give out leaflets and honestly,
about nine out of ten of them would walk by and say ‘no thank you’ in a
horribly English way. It would be better
if they said nothing at all. I can’t
help it, it brings out the sarcasm in me.
So when I say ‘Human Rights’ and they say ‘No thank you’ in a weirdly
plummy, emotionally cold and disconnected way, I can’t help laughing – as if
they really do not want any rights. What
they are saying is they do not wish to consider whatever it is that I might be
saying. They’re not saying they want
anyone tortured to death – they’re just saying they don’t want to talk to a
bloke in the street holding a cardboard sign.
They’ve been conditioned to get their info through shiny channels, not
dodgy-looking home-made ones. I admit,
after very little sleep, that their lack of interest was mildly annoying and
perplexing, but then there were the other ten per cent who make it
worthwhile.
So despite thin numbers and broody, moody,
uncheerful weather, I still managed to get rid of quite a few flyers and then I
remembered the Limpets. I’d done a rare
thing and printed out a load of copies, printed on both sides! That’s up-market stuff to me. It was issue 170, one that means a lot to me,
as it’s Harold Hempstead’s blog entitled ‘A Fight For The Value Of Life’, which
I find very moving, and the front cover is my poster of Darren Rainey in the
stars, which also means quite a lot to me, as I wanted a positive, spiritual
and strong image of him out there. Quite
a few people showed mild interest and a few stayed and talked in a little more
depth. Another thing to bear in mind is
that in Britain the right-wing press has for a long time been associating the
term ‘Human Rights’ with stories of foreigners exploiting the law and using it
to worm around various things. The dumb
tabloids have trained the uncritical to react to the term ‘Human Rights’ with a
knee-jerk reaction of scathing suspicion, as if it’s a by-word for fraud. Rather sad really, when you think that
establishing Human Rights in conventions, treaties and international law was
how the ‘allies’ defined post-war western civilization – in contradistinction
to nazi ‘culture.’ All the great Human
Rights Declarations and Conventions of the post-war epoch are exactly that – an
attempt to legally define just what it was that made us different from the
fascist enemies we were forced to fight and kill – well, our grandparents were,
I should say… so it’s saddening to
realize that people, well, some people, are suspicious of ‘human rights’.
Being out in my local street like that reminded
me of just how closed most people are.
But it was also very rewarding to engage with the caring minority of the
people. Those who obviously care. Those who grasp the subject quickly, not
staring blankly with bored eyes, but eyes that show life, interest,
comprehension.
Sadly, no press turned up, nor any friends with
cameras so the event itself went unrecorded (they even turned off the Orwellian
street cameras some years back, after the local authorities blew all the town’s
money on an erotic adventure to Thailand or something) I got there before 12, and left soon after
one, feeling chilly but satisfied. Just
as I was packing up, I heard my name called and there across the street were
two friends of mine, an old activist guy who’s a barricade-rat from decades
back and a poet lady who spent years in Egypt and witnessed the blood
there. What a pleasant end to my
demo. They were going to our local
left-wing café, where some friends were having a get-together to celebrate the
Spring. We were soon all babbling away,
with Pete taking the lead. He’s a
personal friend of Corbyn, going back many years and we debated, or were
treated to a debate on Party-Political matters.
After a while, ol’ Pete kindly agreed to do a brief film clip of me, a
kind of micro-version of the protest, as it had not been filmed. We trooped out into the main drag of Penzance
and I ranted at the camera for a few moments, with my poet friend egging me on
with a couple of questions in a mini-interview type thing. When we went back into the café I joined a
salsa combo on congos for a few tunes, I’d played with some of them years before,
ha- before I quit the band to concentrate on campaigning to Save The Holy
Headland….. that’s going back a while……
anyway, I jammed with them on guiro, that scratchy-reggae
bead-gourd-thing, clave etc.. and then the guitar player approached me. I’ve known him for years. Last time I’d seen him he had annoyed me by
criticizing my flyers for the Darren Rainey justice petition. I’d told him then that they were done in a
rush and the message was the main thing.
He reopened the topic. He got out
his flash phone and even showed me a mock-up version of a flyer he’d designed
himself. It had that grotesque drawing
that looks nothing like Darren Rainey on it with some bland text and no proper
link. I asked him if he had signed the
petition. He had not. He had done nothing to promote it, but spent
considerable time designing a dummy flyer just to show me how it should be
done. He hadn’t even signed the
petition. Then he started criticizing my
‘attitude’ and that’s about when I said a loud and hearty ‘fuck you’ to his
face and walked out, trailing ripples of turbulent air. I laughed to myself as I relaxed soon
afterwards. People think it’s a
game. Perhaps they’re right. I see it as a titanic struggle – perhaps I’m
wrong. Either way, let each go their own
way, the way they think best and to many folks, the crusted layer of cynicism
is worn like a helmet-hat to protect the hollow head – I’d rather go hatless
and blundering towards what I think to be true.
I just had a lesson in the people’s prevailing – but not total –
indifference. I still believe most
people are good if you can get through to them – but it’s such hard work, it
would break the nose of a rhinoceros.
Pretty much the biggest buzz came from knowing
that my friend in Georgia was marching on the Courthouse in Gwinnett County,
also choosing May Day as the day of action for justice. Well done, Mori and I hope it went off
without any trouble. When I think of
what you go through in your land, the ‘land of the free’ it just inspires me to
carry on, in my relatively safe European home, where guns are rare and parole
is the norm. Where prisoners in medical
distress get taken to a clinic, dentist or whatever they need. Where, though the system is ancient and
somewhat crusted with archaic rust and corrosion, at least we have some basic
rights, children are not tried as adults, people are not kept in solitary
confinement for more than three weeks maximum and we no longer kill our killers
to prove that killing is wrong, like they are in Arkansas right now.
P.S. When
I get the film footage – I’ll put it up….. The signs mentioned Krishna Maharaj and I
discussed him with some people. It’s a
shame the local press didn’t show up.
They’re owned by big business, so I think they have a policy of strict
control over political news. It probably
would have stopped them from covering or mentioning the holocaust until decades
later too. So I didn’t get a chance to
talk to any press about an innocent Brit in the FDC and about how my MP won’t
respond to me on it. A non-conspiracy of
apathy, cynicism and silence. No wonder
poor Kris is still literally rotting in jail.
They have flesh-eating bacterial disease in the South Florida Reception
Centre, you see, and I tried to tell Derek Thomas MP and ask him to communicate
with Foreign Secretary Clown Johnson, but Derek couldn’t deign to reply to
me. That’s why we pay him £68,000 per
year.
My ‘Boycott Florida’ protest was small, low-key
and humble, but it’s a start. The first
Rainey Protest outside USA, probably outside Florida! I wish they would spread to France, Germany,
Ukraine…. Portugal, Holland, Norway, all my neighbouring states… I certainly reached a few people and planted
a couple of seeds and it’s always good to get out on the streets, take
Democracy back to its original home and birthplace – the Agora. Be not afraid.
When I got home I found this incredible film on youtube, combining some things I dearly love: Paul Robeson singing Joe Hill to a group of Scottish Miners....... what a deep joy that gave me. I hope you all can feel it like I did.
Joe showing signs of road-fever? Looks like Tory Crimes on drums - how apt. Whatever happened to that ol' spiky sound?
The Selecter - Out In The Streets.....
Please see Harold's growing archive of evidence in the Darren Rainey case, thank you.
HOW DID THE DADE C.I.
TCU SHOWER DARREN RAINEY WAS KILLED IN START BEING USED AS A TORTURING DEVICE
TO PUNISH MENTALLY DISABLED INMATES?
Note - the following article, by Harold Hempstead, refers to Dade prison in Florida USA in Tweny Twelve - NOT the infamous nazi death-camp of the Nineteen Forties. The fact that new arrivals to the Transitional 'Care' Unit of this Florida prison, where inmates were starved, tortured, and killed, were greeted by guards with the words 'welcome to Auschwitz' is purely coincidental. Jeremy Schanche, Editor.
Darren Rainey is led to his Death, FDC.
''Inmate Daniel Geiger
was a severely mentally disabled inmate whose mental condition caused him to
almost constantly make noise 24 hours a day.A lot of inmates in the TCU didn’t like to be housed in cells near him
because as loud as he was, it made it very hard for people in cells close to
him to sleep.The foregoing is what
caused Dade C.I. TCU day-shift security staff to place Geiger in cells next to
inmates they didn’t like and they were trying to get to sign out of the
TCU.Sleep deprivation caused most of
the inmates in cells next to Geiger to ask to sign out of the TCU.
In the beginning of
2012, inmates MD and SL were housed in Wing J3.
Day shift security staff didn’t like them because they were very verbal
and filed grievances on things they didn’t like. Geiger was moved from Wing J1 to Wing J3
first as a tool to try to get MD to sign out of the TCU and then he was used to
try and get SL to sign out.
When Geiger was placed
in Wing J3, it immediately upset, to some degree or another, all the inmates
housed in Wing J3. It was a small wing
and Geiger’s loudness could be heard easily through the whole wing.
In 2012 the officer
who killed Darren Rainey was assigned as the wing officer for Wing J3. Rainey’s killer use to talk to inmate KS who
was housed in Wing J3 a lot. KS wasn’t
mentally disabled. He manipulated his
way into the TCU running from a disciplinary report he got at Columbia
C.I. Every shift that Rainey’s killer
worked, he spent an hour or more discussing sports and rap music related issues
with KS in front of KS’s cell. The
officer who killed Rainey worked on night shift.
When Geiger got placed
in Wing J3, KS started telling the officer that killed Rainey, “if you take
Geiger, place him in that shower upstairs and turn it on full hot, I’ll bet you
he’ll stop yelling and making all that noise.”
After a few days of KS telling Rainey’s killer the foregoing, the officer
tried it and it worked. Within several
minutes of Geiger being put in the shower he stopped yelling.
When the officer who
killed Rainey seen that the shower treatment got Geiger to comply and listen to
him, he realized he had a tool to get the most mentally disabled inmates in the
TCU to comply with his orders.
Over the next several
months that officer continued to use that shower as a torturing device to
punish mentally disabled inmates that refused to comply with his orders. Several inmates were placed in that shower.
The fifth inmate that
I witnessed be placed in that shower was Darren Rainey, who was killed in it.
The state and federal
government have known the foregoing for years now.
Several months ago
Daniel Geiger somehow died in the Transitional Care Unit (TCU) at Lake C.I. in
the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC.)
Do mentally disabled
peoples’ lives matter? According to our
history they don’t. A lot of people in
this World don’t care about them. When
are we going to start treating the mentally disabled like humans? Do you think it’s right to abuse the mentally
disabled? Do you think the mentally
disabled should be treated like humans?
Please share this blog
with your friends and anybody you think can help us with getting justice for
the mentally disabled who were abused, tortured and killed in the Dade C.I. TCU
and for the murder of Darren Rainey.
Please sign our petition on Change.org entitled THE LIFE OF BLACK,MENTALLY DISABLED MUSLIM PRISONER DARREN RAINEY DOES MATTER
Poor head-crazy primate Homo sapiens is in a collective confusion, riddled
with angst, broiling with aggression and fundamental fear. Ah, if only he knew his true nature.
We’re at a crossroads – like in the 1930’s – only now we have nuclear
weapons. We know now that the survival
of the world depends upon swift international cooperation to cease the poisoning
of this, our beautiful and mysterious home-planet whilst we still have the
ghost of a chance.
A new monster rises in the west. A
long shadow falls across the world, merging into the darkness of Russia,
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Daesh, Israel and all.
Few countries are innocent. Few individuals are guilty. If our authoritarian power structures are not
working for us, then we must tear them down.
Life must change – or life will cease.
A fresh mind is required to face a problem like this, not a stale
mind. Will the comforts of beer,
consumerism and TV keep us asleep forever?
Can we ever learn from history? Or
will we go complacently to our doom? To
be honest with you folks, I’m kind of worried about that drunken gorilla that’s
just taken over U.S.A. He seems to
embody ignorance, and that’s a very dangerous thing. The thing with Chump is, essentially, Chump IS Capitalism. He is its monster-spawn, its misbegotten
eldritch halfling, its product. Growing up in a monstrous situation, how could he fail to grow up a monster, it’s
always the same with these kids from bad homes.
If the parents had had to live in reality like most of us, this would
never have happened. But since they grew
up deprived of all of life’s morally strengthening experiences, well, what
could you expect?
It’s no joke though, as now the little bastard has his fat, sweaty,
trembling pork-sausage of a finger hovering just over the button that destroys
the planet.
Well, what can you do? Stop and
think. What can you do? I suppose you can do what you can. The trouble is, people don’t usually start
moving until they are desperate, and not enough people are desperate enough –
yet. In 1917 they were desperate enough
in Russia to overthrow the Czar and create a new type of society. OK, it got fucked up by the Bolsheviks almost
immediately and turned into a vile dictatorship of the inner party, but that’s
another story. Revolutions frequently go
horribly wrong, but that does not necessarily justify the existence of the
previous regime.
Every single right we have was acquired by people demanding those rights
from a position of strength. You cannot
demand your rights from a position of weakness.
Parliament, Votes for Commoners, Worker’s Rights, Votes for Women, Civil Rights, Animal Rights, Gay Rights, Legal Marijuana –
you name it – they’ve all been achieved through struggle and sacrifice, in
short, through activism.
Of course, there was a lot of activism in the sixties. Maybe the mind-expanding drugs had something
to do with it – and of course, there was so much to be active about.
It was an ultra-politicised decade, but also a super-cultural decade, a
veritable renaissance, which saw it’s great flowering in 1967, the Summer of
Love. Even as a small child I knew
something was up.
So look – it’s the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution and the 50th anniversary of
the Summer of Love – wouldn’t the obvious thing be to combine 1917’s zeal for
social reform with 1967’s outpouring of transcendental love in 2017?
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.
