Boot Camp Death in Florida

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Boot-camp case stirs students
FAMU, FSU students call for justice at forum
By Daniela Velazquez
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER


College students from throughout Tallahassee remembered Martin Lee Anderson during a forum Wednesday and renewed calls for justice in the case of the 14-year-old's death after an incident involving guards at the Bay County boot camp.

"I began to imagine about slavery. I almost shed a tear. I began to imagine I was bitten by dogs, and I almost shed a tear. I began to imagine I was Martin Lee Anderson beaten to death," said Florida State University senior Jesce Horton to a crowd of students and community members at FSU's Moore Auditorium.



The forum, hosted as part of FSU's Chi Theta chapter of the fraternity Omega Psi Phi's "Omega Week," aimed to educate and provide discussion about Martin's death. He died in January, one day after being kicked and punched by guards. Bay County Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Siebert ruled his death was caused by sickle-cell trait. The body was exhumed, and final results of a second autopsy have not been released, but an expert who viewed the second autopsy on behalf of Martin's family said the boy likely died from asphyxiation caused by the incident.

Gov. Jeb Bush has appointed Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober to investigate. Ober brought in his local sheriff, replacing the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, after the Miami Herald disclosed e-mails FDLE Commissioner Guy Tunnell sent to Bay County officials, promising that a videotape of the incident would not be released. Tunnell, a former Bay County sheriff, apologized for the e-mail exchange.

The fraternity is a participating organization in the Coalition for Justice for Martin Lee Anderson, the group that is organizing a rally April 21, when students from FSU, Florida A&M University and Tallahassee Community College will march from their campuses, converge at the Civic Center and then walk to the Capitol. The coalition demands that Bush and FDLE employees publicly apologize to Martin's family for their "uncooperative nature," that the results from the second autopsy be released, for Tunnell to be officially reprimanded, for all seven guards seen in the video to be arrested, the license of the camp's nurse to be suspended and the medical examiner who performed the first autopsy to be removed from his job.

Some students previewed the black T-shirts to be worn at the march. In bold, white writing across the chest, the shirts read: "The next Emmett Till?" Till was a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago who was killed in 1955, three days after he whistled at a white woman in a grocery store in Money, Miss.

"It's remembrance of such injustices that happened prior to this one," Cendino Teme, 24, an FSU graduate student, said.

The forum featured Rep. Curtis Richardson, D-Tallahassee; Sen. Tony Hill, D-Jacksonville; Benjamin Crump, attorney for Martin Lee Anderson's family; Dale Landry, chair of the Florida State Conference Criminal and Juvenile Justice Committee of the NAACP; and other community members. A video montage played in the auditorium of television news excerpts about Martin's death and his mother's appearance on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country." The video showing Martin's beating at the boot camp was also shown.

"I'm very proud of the students," Crump said. "Young people have the courage to say what is right and what is wrong, whereas the adults are afraid to say what is right and what is wrong."

Crump is an FSU alumnus and member of Omega Psi Phi.

Richardson, a member of the black caucus, helped introduce "The Martin Lee Anderson Act of 2006" last week. The House-passed bill requires the Department of Juvenile Justice to set uniform standards for use of force and restraint.