An expert pathologist announced today that a boy the death of Martin Lee Anderson, 14, at a Florida boot camp in January of this year was the result of a beating administered by guards there.

Anyone who has seen the surveillance videotape of the beating of Anderson can be excused for being skeptical about State of Florida's determination that his death was not the result of trauma.

Anderson was sent to the Bay County Sherriff's Office Boot Camp on Jan. 5, 2006. A judge had remanded him to the facility the day before for joyriding in his grandmother's car. He was pushed against a pole, beaten and kicked after he collapsed during an exercise session. The camp's nurse stood by and watched the beating, periodically checking him with a stethoscope. After two hours, he was taken to a local hospital, then medi-vacced to another hospital in Pensacola. He died the next day.

An initial autopsy by Dr. Charles Siebert blamed Anderson's death on sickle-cell trait -- a condition not known to cause serious health problems. As Joy-Anne Reid notes Seibert has been criticized in the past for performing notoriously inaccurate autopsies -- including a case in which he made notes about the prostate and testicles on the body of a woman. She also point to this story reporting that the nurse, Kristin Schmidt was fined in 1993 by the state nursing board for unspecified reasons.

For Anderson's mother, Gina Jones, the story isn't over:

"I'm just glad the truth is out. But I already knew what the truth was. Now that the truth is out, and I want justice. I want the guards and the nurse to be arrested."
 

No arrests have been made, but the camp has been closed, and a federal civil rights investigation has been opened.

/Martin Lee Anderson/

http://professorkim.blogspot.com/2006/03/youth-who-died-at-boot-camp-was-beaten_14.html