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Posted on Thu,
Feb. 09, 2006
MIAMI HERALD
WATCHDOG
Guards seen
beating 14 year old teen in video
Two South Florida
lawmakers who saw a video of a teen's final hours say he was abused
at a juvenile boot camp. The boy died later that day.
By CAROL MARBIN
MILLER
cmarbin@MiamiHerald.com
A 14-year-old boy
was ''brutally'' beaten by guards and ''flung around like a rag
doll'' at a boot camp for juvenile delinquents in Panama City hours
before he died at a Panhandle hospital, according to two lawmakers
who on Wednesday saw a videotape of the incident.
The video, which
recorded the last 20 to 30 minutes of the teen's stay at the Bay
County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp, shows officers at times kicking,
punching and choking Martin Lee Anderson after he refused, or was
unable, to comply with officers' orders to run or do other
exercises, the legislators said.
Martin, of Panama
City, died Jan. 6 at Pensacola's Sacred Heart Hospital, hours after
he was admitted to the boot camp, which is operated under a contract
with the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
The state
Department of Law Enforcement, which is investigating Martin's
death, showed the camp videotape to two members of the Florida House
of Representatives who oversee youth corrections, and at least four
members of the governor's staff at FDLE headquarters Wednesday
morning.
Clearly shaken,
state Rep. Gus Barreiro told The Miami Herald that the tape depicted
''the most heinous treatment of a human being'' he had ever seen.
``It was obvious
to me the kid was unconscious, and they were still abusing him.
People will be outraged when they see this tape, and they should be
outraged.
''This could be
anybody's son,'' added Barreiro, a Miami Beach Republican who chairs
the House Juvenile Justice Appropriations Committee, and has headed
a separate committee investigating alleged abuses in DJJ
facilities.
State Rep. Dan
Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat who investigated dozens of alleged
police brutality cases as head of the U.S. attorney's office
civil-rights division in Miami for a decade, also saw the video.
''There's no
question that the force used here was well beyond what was necessary
for the situation,'' Gelber said. ``The truth is that this kid died
in custody. . . . What we saw was very, very distressing.''
GOVERNOR'S
OFFICE
A spokesman for
Gov. Jeb Bush confirmed that four staffers from his office viewed
the tape, but he declined to discuss what they saw. The officials
were Bush Chief of Staff Mark Kaplan, Public Safety Policy Director
Randy Ball, Deputy Chief of Staff Carol Gormley, and legal advisor
Vicki Brennan.
''They viewed the
video in light of their duties overseeing the [juvenile justice]
agency,'' said Bush spokesman Russell Schweiss. ``They thought it
was appropriate to help them understand the incident.''
FDLE officials and
the Bay County Sheriff's Office declined to discuss the contents of
the tape Wednesday. The FDLE also denied a request from The Miami
Herald for a copy.
''We believe, in
good faith, that this video is not a public record at this time,''
said FDLE spokesman Tom Berlinger. ``The limited disclosure that
took place this morning was to government officials who have
oversight authority of state government agencies.''
The Miami Herald
was not able to reach a spokeswoman for the Department of Juvenile
Justice, which has consistently declined to discuss the
investigation.
`MANY
QUESTIONS'
On Jan. 17, Bay
County Sheriff Frank McKeithen issued a terse statement, saying
release of the tape will raise ``many questions, concerns and
accusations.''
''We must not
leave you with the impression that this is going to have a good
ending,'' he wrote.
Said Barreiro on
Wednesday: ``I now know why the sheriff was so concerned.''
Reached by
telephone in Panama City on Wednesday night, Martin's parents
expressed outrage and sadness at hearing of the tape's contents.
''I want justice;
that's what I want,'' said Robert Anderson, Martin's father. ``But I
can't really get it, because my son is gone.''
''What the hell is
a [large] man doing putting his knee into my son's back?'' Anderson
said. ``He was only 14. He weighed less than 140 pounds.''
Said Benjamin
Crump, the family's Tallahassee attorney: ``This is just too
painful. To say that the family is devastated by this news is an
understatement. Losing a child is hard enough.''
Juvenile justice
officials have said Martin may have bled to death. No autopsy report
has been made public. Barreiro and Gelber said they were told by the
FDLE that Martin displayed no visible bruising.
Martin was
arrested after he and four cousins took their grandmother's car from
a church parking lot during Sunday services, and then crashed it.
Though the
grandmother did not wish to press charges, the youths all were
arrested on grand-theft charges, Crump said.
The teen was in
the admissions area of the boot camp Jan. 5 when he was ordered by
drill instructors, along with several other youths, to perform
exercises. While the youths were being initiated into the program,
an officer held a video camera and zoomed in to film moments when
youths were being restrained, Barreiro said he was told.
As the video
begins, several other youths are seen being held up against a wooden
fence as drill instructors yell at them. Martin, in what has been
described by juvenile justice officials as a ''restraint,'' is first
seen being held down on the ground by two officers, with his arms
spread out, Barreiro said.
One officer is
seen with his knee pushing into his back. Though the tape contains
no sound, the officers appear to be yelling at the teen, Barreiro
said.
After a minute or
two, Martin stands up and attempts to run around the camp's track,
Barreiro said. Officers ''rush'' to hold him up against the wooden
fence, ''with his arms spread out like a crucifix,'' Barreiro said.
Then four guards
are seen holding Martin to the ground, with one officer pushing his
knee into the youth's back.
As Martin gets up
to run again, he is clearly ''stumbling,'' unable to run or walk,
Barreiro said.
REWIND REQUEST
What happened
next, Barreiro said, was so disturbing he asked the FDLE agent
showing the tape to rewind several times. On screen, a guard is seen
apparently choking Martin by pushing his forearm against his throat,
Barreiro and Gelber said.
The youth is once
again encouraged to begin running, but again he stumbles and falls
down, Barreiro said: ``He is like a rag doll . . . They are holding
him up.''
Said Gelber:
``They are moving his body around like a sack of potatoes.''
Then, both
lawmakers said, an officer either kicks or knees Martin in the back
of his knees so that he falls down. ''When he's on the ground,''
Barreiro said, ``they start punching him in the arms. He's like
comatose, and they are punching and punching.''
Moments later, the
lawmakers say, officers yank Martin by the head and jerk it back.
Once again, Barreiro said, they place Martin in what appears to be a
type of choke hold.
''That was pretty
violent,'' Gelber said of what he called the ''jolting'' of the
teen's head. ``You could see from the very beginning [Martin] had a
problem. His legs were rubbery. The kid was fainting and losing
consciousness repeatedly.''
At some point,
officers appeared to be pushing an object -- the lawmakers said they
were told it was ammonia to help Martin regain consciousness --
forcefully into his nose. Juvenile justice officials have previously
said Martin bled profusely from some injury to his nose.
Gelber said he was
particularly struck by the apparent lack of any urgency or concern
on the part of the boot-camp officers -- and a nurse who appeared to
stand by doing little -- while Martin was clearly in grave distress
for about 20 minutes.
''This was too
long a period of time to not have sought medical attention,'' Gelber
said. ``Giving the officers the benefit of all doubt, it's hard to
divine what the possible justification was for their treatment of
the juvenile.''
Crump, the
family's attorney, described Martin on Wednesday as ''a good kid''
who made honor roll on his last report card, and played basketball
for his school team.
''It is not the
policy of our country to kill a kid for going joyriding in his
grandmother's car,'' Crump said.
Miami Herald staff
writers Marc Caputo and Mary Ellen Klas contributed to this report.
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