Torture, Murder and Misconduct Under Color of Law

By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News

03 February 19

arren Rainey was a schizophrenic, 50-year-old drug dealer serving two years in a Miami, Florida, prison for cocaine possession when, on June 23, 2012, he defecated in his cell while in a mental haze. The guard on duty, Roland Clarke, didn’t take well to Rainey’s mental breakdown, so he dragged his prisoner into the shower, tied him up inside one of the stalls, and with a jury-rigged control, scalded him. Clarke left Rainey in the shower for two hours. According to a prisoner who witnessed the incident, Rainey was screaming, “I can’t take it no more! I’m sorry! I won’t do it again!” No guards responded to the man’s screams. When Clarke went to remove his victim, Rainey was dead, and much of his skin had peeled off and was lying in a pile on the shower floor. He had been boiled to death.

Two years later, the medical examiner declared Rainey’s death an “accident.” No charges were filed against Clarke or against any of the other corrections officers (CO) on duty that day. The Florida Department of Corrections closed its own investigation because, if the medical examiner said that no crime was committed, there was nothing to investigate. In 2017, five years after Rainey’s death, state prosecutors, in a 101-page report, also concluded that it was an accident, coupled with complications of mental illness and “exposure to a hot shower.” There would be no prosecution, although eventually the state paid Rainey’s family $4.5 million in a wrongful death suit, and Warden Jerry Cummings was fired, albeit more than two years after Rainey’s death.

Roland Clarke was not the only CO accused of wrongdoing at the same time that Rainey was killed. Former prison psychologist George Mallinkrodt and an anonymous prison employee and told the Miami Herald that COs “made a sport” of agitating mentally ill prisoners, hoping for an excuse to beat them. The anonymous CO also said that mentally ill prisoners were routinely threatened with “the shower treatment.” And in a complaint to the Justice Department, Mallinkrodt wrote that “guards taunted, tormented, abused, beat, and tortured chronically mentally ill inmates on a regular basis, hoping to provoke a response so the inmate could be punished.”

One prisoner, Joseph Swilling, said that guards once handcuffed him behind his back and led him down a hallway out of the range of security cameras, where they threw him on the floor and repeatedly kicked him.

Richard Mair, a murderer who hung himself two months after the Rainey killing, wrote a suicide note and put it in his underwear accusing COs of sexually assaulting prisoners and forcing black and white prisoners to fight each other for the guards’ amusement. Remember, nobody was disciplined, fired, or prosecuted for any of this behavior.

So what happened to Roland Clarke? He finally quit his job two years after killing Darren Rainey, but only after a Miami Herald exposé caused worldwide consternation. He then quickly found work with the Miami Gardens Police Department as a patrol officer, and he just as quickly got himself into trouble. He was disciplined for running a red light and smashing into a car that had a green light. He was also disciplined for calling a tow truck to tow away a car that belonged to a drowning victim without first securing a wallet and cell phone inside. They disappeared before detectives could examine them.

Soon after joining the force, Clarke was “counseled” by his captain and two sergeants about not “having personal relationships while on the job.” He apparently ignored the admonition. In 2016, he was suspended for five days after an Internal Affairs Division investigation found that he was routinely visiting a woman at her house while he was supposed to be on the job in a different part of town.

Two years later, Clarke was accused of the same thing – visiting yet another woman at her house while he was supposed to be on patrol. They had sex on multiple occasions, and there were photos, emails, and text messages to prove the allegation. As it turned out, the woman reported Clarke to the police department because he wouldn’t marry her; he was already married to another police officer. The department then initiated surveillance on him, and his wife filed for divorce.

Clarke’s reaction was one of defiance. He told a fellow officer in a conversation that was recorded: “Look what my side bitch did to me. That bitch tried to get me fired. ’Cause she know I can’t come around there acting crazy with her ’cause I’m an officer, so this ho called anonymously, saying, ‘This n**** be coming to my house and fucking me on duty.’”

So what does the police department do with a problem cop like Clarke? Miami Gardens mayor Oliver Gilbert told the Miami New Times that he wants to fire Clarke, although he has no authority to do so. Police Chief Delma Noel-Pratt has offered no comment. Meanwhile, Roland Clarke, already responsible for the death of one man, untrustworthy, a bad cop, is still on the street.

John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.