PANAMA CITY - Florida NAACP leaders and hundreds of
Florida Panhandle residents Saturday demanded the
immediate arrests of juvenile boot camp guards seen on a
security video kneeing, kicking and dragging a
14-year-old boy who later died.
The group also called for a nurse who stood by and
watched for 30 minutes as the nine guards handled Martin
Lee Anderson to lose her job and her medical license.
"You watched that video tape. If that was Gov. Bush's
child, how long would it have taken for those law
enforcement officers to be arrested?" Benjamin Crump,
the attorney for Anderson's family, said to cheers from
more than 400 people who attended a community forum.
Florida NAACP State Conference President Adori Obi
Nweze said the forum could be followed by marches and
other protests aimed at Bay County Sheriff Frank
McKeithen and other government leaders.
Panama City residents packed the aisles and stood
outside the Macedonia Baptist Church for the three-hour
meeting, which included an impassioned plea from
Anderson's parents to help them find justice.
"I have a lot of anger going out toward that nurse. I
hate her. She stood by and watched my baby being
tortured by all those guards. My baby was cold-blooded
murdered," said Gina Jones, the teen's mother.
Robert Anderson, the boy's father, told the crowd
about holding his son's clenched hand after the family
decided to remove him from life support Jan. 6, hours
after the teen was admitted to the Bay County Sheriff's
Office Boot Camp. Martin Anderson died shortly
afterward.
"For a man to see what these men did to my son, I
wished I could go up there and kill all of them," Robert
Anderson said.
An autopsy performed by Dr. Charles Siebert, the
medical examiner for Bay County, found Martin Anderson
died of hemorrhaging caused by sickle cell trait, a
normally benign blood condition that affects about one
in 12 black people.
Siebert said physical stress caused a cascade of
events ending in Anderson's red blood cells changing
shape and causing him to bleed to death internally.
Numerous medical experts have called the finding
unlikely.
Crump has said the family is making arrangements to
have the teen's body exhumed for a second autopsy to
dispute findings by the Bay County Medical Examiner.
The family and the NAACP have asked that Dr. Michael
Baden, a forensic pathologist who reviewed the medical
evidence in the slaying of civil rights leader Medgar
Evars, be involved in the second autopsy.
Last week, Gov. Jeb Bush agreed to appoint a new
state attorney to review evidence in the case after
State Attorney Steve Meadows, the prosecutor whose
jurisdiction includes Panama City, asked to be
transferred to avoid any appearance of a conflict of
interest.
Bush gave the case to Hillsborough County State
Attorney Mark A. Ober. Ober's office has declined
comment on the case, calling it an ongoing
investigation, but Crump said the family has discussed
exhuming Anderson's body with Ober. Bush has also
suggested a new autopsy could be performed.
A group of Panama City ministers read an open letter
at Saturday's forum asking Bush to demand the immediate
arrest of the boot camp guards, an investigation of the
camp nurse and to close each of the state's six juvenile
boot camps.
McKeithen notified the state Tuesday that he plans
terminate his contract to operate the Bay County boot
camp under its contract with the state Department of
Juvenile Justice within the next three months. But the
sheriff also said he plans to open a new, county-owned,
juvenile military-style academy, which would employ many
of the same employees.
Anderson was the third young black male to die in
state custody in the past three years.
Willie Lawrence Durden III, 17, of Jacksonville was
found unconscious in his cell at the Cypress Creek
Juvenile Offender Corrections Center in Citrus County in
October. Omar Paisley, also 17, died from a burst
appendix that went untreated in June 2003 at a juvenile
detention facility in Miami.
