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ABC News
US
After Second Autopsy,
Family of a Teen Who Died in a Fla. Boot Camp Alleges a
Cover-Up
 TAMPA,
Fla. Mar 14, 2006 (AP)— A forensic pathologist who observed
a second autopsy on a teen who died at a juvenile boot camp
said the results seem to indicate his death was caused by a
beating by guards, not by a blood condition.
The body of Martin Lee Anderson, 14,
was exhumed in Panama City last week. The new autopsy was
ordered after his parents questioned the findings of Bay
County's medical examiner, who concluded the boy died from
complications of sickle cell trait.
Dr. Michael Baden, who observed the
autopsy on behalf of Anderson's parents, told Fox News on
Monday he believes that conclusion was made in error.
"In my opinion, he would still be alive
today if he didn't suffer that altercation and
confrontation," said Baden, who reviewed medical evidence in
the slaying of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers and the
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Anderson's mother said Tuesday that she
believes the doctor who performed the first autopsy took
part in a cover-up.
"It was a cover-up from Day 1," his
mother, Gina Jones, told NBC's Today show. "The guards and
the nurse, they need to be punished for the crime they did.
They took my baby away from me. They killed my baby."
She said the family believes the teen
was targeted for abuse because he had long hair.
Dr. Charles Siebert, medical examiner
for the district that includes Bay County, did not
immediately return a phone message left at his office
Tuesday morning.
Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark
Ober said he would have no comment until the investigation
is finished. No charges have been filed, and no guards have
been arrested or fired, though the camp, operated by the Bay
County Sheriff's Office, has been closed.
The U.S. Attorney's office in
Tallahassee and the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights
Division also have opened an investigation into Anderson's
death.
Anderson died Jan. 6, 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.
Members of the NAACP, the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition
held a vigil outside the medical examiner's office Monday.
"We wish we didn't have to be here,"
said Adora Obi Nweze, president of the NAACP's Florida State
Conference. "We have reason to doubt our state at this
point."
The Sickle Cell Disease Association of
America also weighed in, saying it's unlikely Anderson would
have died from having sickle cell trait.
"Attributing the death of this young
man to sickle cell trait given the physical punishment he
was put through does a disservice to the public and those in
the sickle cell disease community," said Dr. Willarda V.
Edwards, president of the association.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1722714&page=1
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