- Sep 26, 2000
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http://www.azcentral.com/news/.../1013bootcamp1013.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c...2003946762_ndig13.html
Eight former boot-camp workers were acquitted of manslaughter Friday in the death of a 14-year-old boy who was videotaped being punched and kicked. The scene sparked outrage and changes in the juvenile system, but it took jurors just 90 minutes to decide it was not a crime.
Anger over the verdict was obvious outside the courtroom, where bystanders screamed "murderer" at former guard Henry Dickens as he described his relief at the verdict.
Martin Lee Anderson died a day after being hit and kicked by Dickens and six other guards as a nurse watched, a 30-minute confrontation that drew protests in the state capital, Tallahassee, and spelled the end of Florida's system of juvenile boot camps.
Shortly after the verdict was read, the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said it was opening an investigation into the case.
The defendants testified that they followed the rules at a get-tough facility where young offenders often feigned illness to avoid exercise. Their attorneys said Anderson died not from rough treatment but from a previously undiagnosed blood disorder.
The boy's mother, Gina Jones, stormed out of the courtroom. "I cannot see my son no more. Everybody see their family members. It's wrong," she screamed.
The all-white jury also decided against convicting on lesser charges, including child neglect and culpable negligence.
The guards were videotaped on Jan. 5, 2006, hitting and kicking Anderson and jabbing their fingers in pressure points on his head for nearly 30 minutes while the nurse watched. The videotape was made public and drew national media attention. The eight employees were later charged with aggravated manslaughter.
But experts throughout the trial insisted that the boy did not die of the blows he received from the guards.
Prosecutors had argued that the defendants were responsible for Anderson's death because the guards held their hands over his mouth while repeatedly pushing ammonia close to his nose, once for as long as five minutes.
Tampa's chief medical examiner, Dr. Vernard Adams, who did a second autopsy on the teen, ruled suffocation was the cause of death.
Bay County's medical examiner, who did the first autopsy, testified he died of sickle-cell trait, a normally benign condition.
But the jury had to weigh the testimony of other experts, including that of New Hampshire's medical examiner, Dr. Thomas Andrew. As a witness for prosecutors, he testified that Anderson died of a sickle-cell trait aggravated by the beating and the suffocation.
The defense called an expert in sickle-cell collapse who said that Anderson's death was a classic case of that extremely rare medical problem and that he had begun to die before the guards began hitting and kicking him.
Now, I don't know much about Florida law, but kicking and hitting and applying pain thru pressure points to a 14 year old for nearly 30 minutes seems to me to be nothing short of torture.
Regardless of what actually caused this persons death, I wonder what the f*ck is wrong with Florida for allowing this in the first place.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c...2003946762_ndig13.html
Eight former boot-camp workers were acquitted of manslaughter Friday in the death of a 14-year-old boy who was videotaped being punched and kicked. The scene sparked outrage and changes in the juvenile system, but it took jurors just 90 minutes to decide it was not a crime.
Anger over the verdict was obvious outside the courtroom, where bystanders screamed "murderer" at former guard Henry Dickens as he described his relief at the verdict.
Martin Lee Anderson died a day after being hit and kicked by Dickens and six other guards as a nurse watched, a 30-minute confrontation that drew protests in the state capital, Tallahassee, and spelled the end of Florida's system of juvenile boot camps.
Shortly after the verdict was read, the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said it was opening an investigation into the case.
The defendants testified that they followed the rules at a get-tough facility where young offenders often feigned illness to avoid exercise. Their attorneys said Anderson died not from rough treatment but from a previously undiagnosed blood disorder.
The boy's mother, Gina Jones, stormed out of the courtroom. "I cannot see my son no more. Everybody see their family members. It's wrong," she screamed.
The all-white jury also decided against convicting on lesser charges, including child neglect and culpable negligence.
The guards were videotaped on Jan. 5, 2006, hitting and kicking Anderson and jabbing their fingers in pressure points on his head for nearly 30 minutes while the nurse watched. The videotape was made public and drew national media attention. The eight employees were later charged with aggravated manslaughter.
But experts throughout the trial insisted that the boy did not die of the blows he received from the guards.
Prosecutors had argued that the defendants were responsible for Anderson's death because the guards held their hands over his mouth while repeatedly pushing ammonia close to his nose, once for as long as five minutes.
Tampa's chief medical examiner, Dr. Vernard Adams, who did a second autopsy on the teen, ruled suffocation was the cause of death.
Bay County's medical examiner, who did the first autopsy, testified he died of sickle-cell trait, a normally benign condition.
But the jury had to weigh the testimony of other experts, including that of New Hampshire's medical examiner, Dr. Thomas Andrew. As a witness for prosecutors, he testified that Anderson died of a sickle-cell trait aggravated by the beating and the suffocation.
The defense called an expert in sickle-cell collapse who said that Anderson's death was a classic case of that extremely rare medical problem and that he had begun to die before the guards began hitting and kicking him.
Now, I don't know much about Florida law, but kicking and hitting and applying pain thru pressure points to a 14 year old for nearly 30 minutes seems to me to be nothing short of torture.
Regardless of what actually caused this persons death, I wonder what the f*ck is wrong with Florida for allowing this in the first place.
Do it for Halloween!
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