New Autopsy Conducted in Boot Camp Death
By MITCH STACY
March 13, 2006
Associated Press Writer
 TAMPA,
Fla. — Civil rights groups rallied outside a medical examiner's
office Monday while a second autopsy was conducted on a teenager who
died after he was punched and kicked by guards at a juvenile boot
camp.
The body of Martin Lee Anderson, 14, was
exhumed in Panama City on Friday and brought to Tampa.
The second autopsy was ordered after his
parents questioned the findings of Bay County's medical examiner,
who concluded the teenager died from complications of sickle cell
trait, a usually benign blood disorder.
Anderson died early Jan. 6 at a Pensacola
hospital, hours after he collapsed during exercises on his first day
at the camp. A videotape later released to the media shows that
after he stopped the exercises he was struck, kicked and dragged by
several guards.
Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober is
investigating, but no charges have been filed.
Officials would not discuss the results of the
autopsy completed late Monday, and Ober's office said he would have
no comment until the investigation is finished.
Benjamin Crump, lawyer for the teen's family,
said he would hold a news conference Tuesday morning to discuss the
autopsy.
Dr. Michael Baden, a famed coroner who reviewed
medical evidence in the slaying of Martin Luther King Jr. and worked
for a congressional committee that reinvestigated the assassination
of President Kennedy, is observing the autopsy on behalf of
Anderson's parents.
Outside the office Monday, members of the
NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the
Rainbow/PUSH Coalition were among about two dozen demonstrators in
what they were calling a "Resurrection for Justice" rally.
"It's important that there is a statement that
we are collectively coming together with this family against the
state of Florida and what appears today to be a cover-up in regard
to the death of this young man," said Sevell C. Brown III, state
president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Anderson entered the camp for a probation
violation for trespassing at a school after he and his cousins were
charged with stealing their grandmother's car from a church parking
lot.
"What we came here for is truth and based on
the reaction of the lawyers, one stage of truth is about to be
uncovered," said Dale Landry of the NAACP's Florida chapter after
talking with the family's attorney.
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