PHIL COALE/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Robert Anderson, center, father of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson, talks about his son's death during a news conference Friday in Tallahassee. Gina Jones, left, mother of Martin Lee Anderson, and lawyer Ben Crump also are shown.
Published Saturday, February 18, 2006
Tape Shows Kneeing, Hitting
Teen at boot camp shown offering little resistance to guards in released video. By MELISSA NELSON The Associated Press
PANAMA CITY -- Guards at a juvenile detention boot camp kneed and struck a boy who went limp while being restrained the day before he died, a videotape showed Friday, prompting his mother to question an autopsy that found the death unrelated to the confrontation.
"Martin didn't deserve this right here -- at all," a tearful Gina Jones told reporters after viewing the tape showing as many as nine guards restraining 14-year-old boy Martin Lee Anderson.
"I couldn't even watch the whole tape," she said. "Me as a mom, I knew my baby was in pain, and I am in pain just watching his pain."
Bay County Medical Examiner Charles Siebert said in an autopsy Thursday that Anderson died from internal bleeding caused by a genetic blood disorder, and that even the bruises and scrapes on the boy's body were linked to attempts to resuscitate him.
The 80-minute tape taken by guards at the camp run by the Bay County Sheriff's office was released Friday by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is investigating Anderson's death. The U.S. Justice Department is also looking into possible civil rights violations.
Anderson, who entered the camp Jan. 5 because of a probation violation, complained of breathing difficulties and collapsed during exercises that were part of the entry process. He died the next day at a Pensacola hospital.
The county Sheriff's Office said Anderson was restrained after he became uncooperative.
On the tape, which has no sound, guards are seen kneeing Anderson and wrestling him to the ground, where he was repeatedly struck by one guard, either on his arm or the side of his torso, while he lay still. He was limp throughout most of the altercation and never appeared to offer significant resistance.
A woman in a white coat with a stethoscope was present while the guards restrained the boy and at one point used it to check on him. Near the end of the confrontation guards appear to become more concerned and several began running in and out of the scene. A few minutes later, emergency medical personnel arrive and put the boy on a gurney and take him away.
Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen said "the viewing of this will result in many questions, concerns and accusations."
Lawmakers who previously viewed the tape called for the arrest of the guards.
"When people see the tape and you say he just died of natural causes, it doesn't add up," said Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach. "It doesn't make sense and goes against all the logic of watching what happened to this young man."
Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, said Friday that any guard who touched Anderson should be immediately arrested.
"At the very least it's aggravated battery, at the top of the ladder it's murder," Siplin said.
Siebert's autopsy found Anderson suffered internal bleeding because he had the sickle cell trait, a disorder that produced a "cascade of events" that led to boy's death. The sickle cell disorder is present in one in 12 blacks, but that doesn't show up in routine blood work.
The Florida Southern Christian Leadership Conference called on the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America to review the autopsy findings to determine if they are correct.
"It is our position that Dr. Siebert's findings have implications beyond the local level. This could have far reaching ramifications of an adverse nature upon those with the sickle cell trait if the coroner's findings are incorrect," said Florida SCLC President Sevell C. Brown III.
The boot camp concept for juveniles began in Florida with nine facilities in 1993, but will soon be whittled to four if the Martin County camp closes as scheduled later this year. About 600 boys between ages 14 and 18 remain in the existing camps.
Anderson was arrested in June for stealing his grandmother's Jeep Cherokee and sent to the boot camp for violating his probation by trespassing at a school. He was the third young black male to die in state custody in the past three years.
Willie Lawrence Durden III of Jacksonville was found unconscious in his cell at the Cypress Creek Juvenile Offender Corrections Center in Citrus County last October and Omar Paisley, also 17, died from a burst appendix that went untreated in June 2003 at a juvenile detention facility in Miami.
The FDLE released the tape following a lawsuit by news organizations. The department said Friday that while the investigation is not finished, it released the tape "due to compelling public interest and speculation as to its contents."
