Guard's lawyer fears political pressure will lead to charges

By MELISSA NELSON

Associated Press

PENSACOLA - Lawyers for Panama City juvenile boot camp guards who were videotaped dragging a limp teenager around an exercise yard and shoving ammonia pills up his nose hours before he died, said Thursday an investigation will show they did not murder him.

''These are fine young men who cared about these kids, they are not thugs or racists,'' said Bob Pell, an attorney for Bay County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp guard Joseph Walsh.

But an attorney for one of the three men said he fears pressure placed on Gov. Jeb Bush by the state's black leaders will force prosecutors to arrest the guards.

''People are belligerent in their views and they have put a lot of pressure on the governor. I think the prosecutors could succumb to that pressure to charge these guys to quiet the community,'' said Waylon Graham, an attorney for Lt. Charles Helms, the officer who was second in command at the boot camp.

Graham and the other attorneys said their clients and the other guards were doing what they were trained to do when they applied knee strikes and hammer-like punches to 14-year-old Martin Anderson's legs and arms during the 30-minute encounter.

Anderson died Jan. 6, hours after he entered the boot camp and guards restrained him after they said he was uncooperative while running laps and doing push-ups, sit-ups and other exercises.

An autopsy performed by the coroner for Bay County found the teen died from a blood disorder called sickle-cell trait, but a second autopsy performed at the request of an independent prosecutor found Anderson did not die of natural causes.

Investigators have said it will be weeks before an exact cause of death is determined.

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