Act of malice

I can’t believe that State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s office has come to the disappointing conclusion that the corrections officers who locked Darren Rainey, an inmate with severe mental illness, in a scalding hot shower for two hours did so without “premeditation, malice, recklessness, ill-will, hatred or evil intent.”

Only someone who is so completely blind to justice could come to such an outrageous, unsupportable conclusion.

These guards wanted to punish Rainey, so they literally cooked his skin off while he screamed in agony.

What these guards did is the classic definition of premeditation, malice, recklessness, ill-will, hatred or evil intent. A poor, black, mentally ill person is abused to death by four guards and they walk away scot-free.

I hope the Rainey’s family, as well as our entire community, demand that Acting U.S. Attorney Benjamin G. Greenberg review this miscarriage of justice and indict these guards for violating his civil rights.

This story was originally published March 21, 2017 at 11:17 PM with the headline "Act of malice."