Ex-guards, nurse charged in camp death

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Ex-guards, nurse charged in camp death



By MELISSA NELSON Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press


PENSACOLA, Fla. — Seven former juvenile boot camp guards and a nurse have been charged with aggravated manslaughter in the death of a boy whose rough handling by the guards was videotaped, a special prosecutor said Tuesday.

Martin Lee Anderson, 14, collapsed on the exercise yard at the Bay County sheriff's camp in Panama City on Jan. 5. Guards said he was uncooperative and refused to continue participating in exercises that were part of the camp's intake processes.

He died early the next morning in Pensacola.

If convicted, the former guards and the nurse who watched the altercation could face up to 30 years in prison.

Benjamin Crump, the attorney for Anderson's parents, was in Panama City with the family Tuesday and didn't immediately return a call for comment.

Bob Pell, an attorney who represents former guard Joseph Walsh II, said he hadn't heard about charge against his client.

"I didn't anticipate it. I was hoping cooler heads would prevail, but we will deal with this as it comes down. We understood the political pressure that was brought to bear," he said.

The boy's death sparked protests in the state capital, the elimination of the military-style boot camp system and the resignation of the state's top law enforcement officer.

An initial autopsy by medical examiner Dr. Charles Siebert found Anderson died of complications of sickle cell trait, a usually benign blood disorder.

A second autopsy by Dr. Vernard Adams, the medical examiner for Hillsborough County, found Anderson's death was caused by suffocation due to the actions of the guards.

He said the suffocation was caused by hands blocking the boy's mouth, as well as the "forced inhalation of ammonia fumes" that caused his vocal cords to spasm, blocking Anderson's upper airway.

The guards had said in an incident report that they used ammonia capsules five times on Anderson to gain his cooperation.

Siebert has consistently stood by his findings.

Gov. Jeb Bush, who appointed the prosecutor after the state attorney for Bay County asked to be removed, said Tuesday he was following the case closely.

"We also hope that once the process is completed that Martin Lee Anderson's family will have the answers to the questions that they legitimately have," Bush said.

Anderson's family has sued the state Department of Juvenile Justice, which oversaw the boot camp system, and the Bay County Sheriff's Office, which ran the camp, seeking more than $40 million in damages.

Ammonia capsules? Strangulation? This was a 14 year old boy...

My daughter just spent eight and a half months in a place like that. Operates totally outside the judicial system. It's run by the mental health industry feminists and their stooges like you. After eight and a half months, they got my daughter down on her knees and she was released until anytime ugly cruel butch feels like throwing her back in again. No trial, no lawyers, no rights, nothing.

I've noticed your previous references to the American c**t Lappers Union, who claim to be concerned about human rights but refuse to even consider the rights of the most oppressed two groups in North America and western Europe: Heterosexual fathers and their children, the people who have absolutely no rights, not even the right to be free from physical assault, so long as assault on children is committed by a woman

I don't suppose they told you in your women's studies programming that men kill themselves four times as often as women, and I doubt if you're sufficiently capable of independent thought to wonder why.

You object to people being humiliated at guantanamo abd abu ghraib? What do you think happens every day at the feminist ruled "family court" right by where you live? Butch enjoys it; it's what they call "empowerment of women." They're right. Since they can humiliate people for fun, using their love for their children as blackmail, they're obviously more powerful.

Your position makes a lot of sense. As long as you crawl on your knees serving the oppressors, repeating whatever they tell you to say, they'll make somebody else suffer for their pleasure instead of you.

Canyonwind, I think your point got lost in the vituperative. Would you care to make it a little more lucidly?

Hey Manilla

I'm sorry dude, guess I blew up and got upset with the wrong hillbilly. I often disagree with you, but I got no quarrel with anybody except feminists. I'm not entirely sane. Some experiences do that to you.

I got no idea what vituperative means. I'd google it, but I never use five sylable words. The only four sylable word I can think of is obscene. I assume you mean I'm supposed to be all calm and rational about my daughters getting beat up, or imprisoned without any semblance of due process if they're likely to defend themselves. Ain't gonna happen.

OK I'm done. I done been off topic in this thread too much already and I ain't gonna hijack it no more.

I saw this too.

I think that places like this need to have some better controls.

I live in Utah, and we have a lot of those wilderness program type things for troubled youth. In one case (the civil suit was just setteld a few months ago) they accepted a kid that was too fat into one of these programs, and the counsellors didn't notice that he was getting dehydrated. They just figured he was uncooperative, and they let him die. He's fat, it's July, they're in a desert - DUH!! !!

I'm a feminist, and I support children's as well as women's rights. I feel that if it is wrong to hit a woman, it is also wrong to hit a child. children should enjoy the same civil right which we all have. Youth boot camps, if they are to exist should have state supervision, and it's inmates should have due process in juvenile courts. As I understand it, boot camp is a voluntary alternative to prison. The reason why girls have female guards, while boys have male ones is to prevent potential alegations of sexual misconduct. Also I think that the inmates may be strip searched. That is the way that it is in women's prison anyway. I would agree that matriarchy is wrong, just as bad in my opinion as patriarchy. men and women should be co-equal in society, as well as family.