Boy, 14, tells of boot camp beatings. A boy who says he witnessed the beating of Martin Lee
Anderson recalled what he saw and heard at the Panama City boot camp.
By Marc Caputo mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com, Miami Herald, February 26, 2006
Martin Lee Anderson, 14, died after being beaten by guards at the Bay County Boot Camp on January 5. The boot
camp is operated by the Bay County Sheriff's Department and overseen by Florida's Department of Juvenile Justice.
The screaming guards. The pressure points. The knee takedowns. The acrid ammonia stick shoved in the face of a
rubber-legged 14-year-old named Martin Lee Anderson.
Aaron Swartz can't forget any of it. Not because he saw it all the way most people did -- in a grainy videotape of the
guards and Martin before his death -- but because Aaron was there, at Bay County Boot Camp, receiving much of
the same violent treatment that still makes him shudder miles away from it all.
''They killed that boy. They didn't help him. They beat him,'' Aaron, also 14, told The Miami Herald in one of the first
eyewitness -- and earwitness -- accounts of the dehumanizing experience of life at the Panama City lockup before,
during and after Martin's arrival.
Like every kid who's about to enter the Bay Boot Camp, Aaron said Martin lost his first name. From the moment he
arrived Jan. 5, he was called ''Offender Anderson,'' just like Aaron was ''Offender Swartz.'' Actually, the names -- and
slurs and everything else -- were screamed at them by ''drill instructors,'' who slammed boys against concrete walls,
shoved their thumbs in a painful pressure point behind their ears, and forced them to respond with a ``Sir, yes sir!''
And just like every kid's hair, Martin's braids were shaved off aggressively by a mocking DI. It was there, as Martin
sat in the barber chair, that Aaron first saw him. And Martin had the look: ''scared, like everybody else,'' Aaron said.
As Aaron tells it, time at the camp was measured in fear and pain, in increments of forced exercise, wall-slams,
pressure points, knee takedowns and hammer-fist punches by DIs who video-taped it all. When the boys would go to
bed, he said, they could hear the DIs watching the tapes in a nearby room, cheering on their greatest hits as if
watching a sporting event.
''The stuff they did to him, they do to everybody everyday. I've never seen somebody get pressure-pointed that
many times at once, but it's pretty much like that everyday,'' he said.
The medical treatment wasn't much better. Aaron said the camp is a place where the nurse, Kristin Schmidt, more
often dispensed the term ''malingerer'' -- rather than medicine -- when kids said they were hurt or sick.
Despite suffering from asthma and a chest infection, he said, Schmidt refused to give him anything but Sudafed for
more than a month. After Martin's death, a doctor finally saw him and put him on antibiotics.
Martin's death is under investigation. No charges have been filed. A new medical examiner will review the autopsy --
and might exhume Martin -- to verify whether he died from an exertion-related blood disorder, as the Bay County
medical examiner found. Sheriff Frank McKeithen said last week he'll soon close the camp.
COVER-UP CHARGED
Like Martin's family, Aaron thinks there's a coverup. He believes he overheard one guard repeatedly talking of
''revising'' and changing a report or reports, but he doesn't know which ones. He said around 6 p.m. on Jan. 6 a
camp counselor told the boys Martin had died of natural causes -- only about two hours after Dr. Charles Siebert
finished the autopsy.
Siebert said Saturday that nobody could determine the cause of death that soon, and he later thought a sickle-cell
trait might be to blame. But he had to wait for lab results.
''I had no physical evidence of any trauma or injury that could have caused or contributed to his death, therefore I
had to wait for further evidence to determine his cause of death,'' Siebert said in an e-mail of his controversial
autopsy report, which Martin's family disputes. Siebert said he later reviewed reports from the guards saying Martin
resisted them. Siebert said the reports indicated Martin was aware and able to respond verbally.
The Bay County Sheriff's Office will not discuss the case. The DIs could not be reached. The nurse won't comment.
Florida public-records laws prohibit access to juvenile records for living children such as Aaron. He was convicted for
a store break-in; Martin for joyriding in his grandma's car. Aaron's mother, Shuana Manning, spoke in general terms
last week to the news media about what her son saw. She produced copies of handwritten letters that Aaron sent
from the camp -- signed: ``Offender Swartz.''
Aaron spoke to The Miami Herald for more than an hour at his mother's Tallahassee-area home during a weekend
break Saturday from a Panhandle wilderness camp. He was sent there three weeks after Martin's death.
Aaron said he hasn't seen the video of Martin's beating.
The video opens up with youths running around in a circle, typical on ''intake day'' when the DIs made them run 16
laps and perform multiple push-ups and sit-ups. Martin was doing well, but then he staggered, stopped and fell.
''They should have known he wasn't faking because it was his last lap,'' Aaron said.
DI Charles Steven Enfinger made a beeline for Martin and ''slammed him up against the wall,'' he said.
''He's one of the most violent ones, he likes to slam you and stuff. They all come to work, every day, and try to slam
somebody. It's like you can tell by the way they act,'' Aaron said.
DI Henry Lincoln McFadden soon joined Enfinger, said Aaron, noting the two men yelled in Martin's face.
Soon, everyone had finished their exercises and had to sit down nearby, eyes forward. Aaron said he shifted his
glance slightly to watch Martin. He said he was too far away to hear everything Enfinger and McFadden were yelling,
but never heard any type of response from Martin.
Here's what he heard: ''Point 99 on Offender Anderson.'' It was McFadden and Enfinger reporting in radio code that
they had applied a pressure-point behind Martin's ear. After seven of those, Aaron stopped counting. He said he
also saw and heard the ''knee takedown'' on Martin.
One DI watching over Aaron and the others laughed: ''Offender Anderson's going to have a long day.'' Aaron said
multiple guards joined in, and Cpl. Joseph Walsh used so much exertion that he worked up a sweat. He said Enfinger
struck Martin repeatedly on the arm, which is reflected in the video.
''And the nurse comes over there. She's watching. She's standing there,'' he said. Soon she applied an electronic
pulse reader to Martin's finger that beeps with every heart beat. ''It was like beep-beep-beep-beep,'' Aaron said
quickly.
SUDDEN CONCERN
Finally, the tone of the DI screaming started to change from angry to concerned when Walsh said: ''Get the red
bag!'' The bag had ammonia sticks in it, which the guards would crack open and press against the offenders' noses
to revive them to perform more exercises. A DJJ official said last week that using ammonia in this nonmedical way
was against policy. Aaron said he had been dosed once when he was about to pass out from exercise. ''It burns,'' he
said.
But the ammonia didn't revive Martin. And soon they could hear the sirens. The boys were led inside. Martin was
whisked away only hours after arriving at the camp.
The following evening, about 15 hours after Martin was pronounced dead, Aaron said, the mental health counselor
named ''Ms. Miki'' told them that ``it was completely medical. . . . Athletes die every day, all the time, for medical
reasons -- that healthy athletes stop and die so it's not unusual.''
Said Aaron: ``I don't think that's true at all. Even if it was medical, when he passed out, if they would have set him
down and then gave him medical help right then, I think they could have saved his life and everything. But instead,
they did all pressure-pointing, slammed him, beating up on him and everything.'
Autopsy: Boot camp guards killed teen; Second coroner's examination finds 14-year-old
suffocated CNN, May 5, 2006
(CNN) -- A teenager who died at a Florida boot camp was suffocated by guards who were restraining him, a medical
examiner has determined.
The teen's mother hailed the findings, saying "the truth is out," but a lawyer for one of the guards accused the
examiner of giving in to political pressure.
Martin Lee Anderson, 14, died in January after he was restrained and struck by workers at the boot camp for juvenile
offenders.
No charges have been filed in connection with Anderson's death.
Initial autopsy results in February had determined Anderson died from complications from sickle cell trait, which had
not been previously diagnosed in the teenage athlete.
Hillsborough County Chief Medical Examiner Vernard I. Adams conducted a second autopsy after Anderson's family,
other medical experts and civil rights leaders balked at the conclusion of the first examination.
"Martin Anderson's death was caused by suffocation due to actions of the guards at the boot camp," Adams wrote.
"The suffocation was caused by manual occlusion of the mouth, in concert with forced inhalation of ammonia fumes
that caused spasm of the vocal cords resulting in internal blockage of the upper airway."
But an attorney for Lt. Charles Helms, one of the guards, told CNN that he was disappointed by Adams' findings.
"It appears he caved in to the pressure of the politicians," said attorney Waylon Graham. "This is going to be a battle
of the coroners."
Graham said it was "a foregone conclusion" that the guards would face criminal charges and said the first medical
examiner, Dr. Charles Seibert -- who has said he stands by his conclusions -- would be "our star witness."
The entire investigation, he said, is "a witch hunt."
Parents allege cover-up Anderson's parents, Robert Anderson and Gina Jones, said they were unconcerned with
Seibert's position and accused him of participating in a cover-up.
"My baby was murdered in the boot camp and he tried to cover it up," Jones told reporters.
"The truth is out," she said. "I am relieved and happy today. It's a beginning. Justice needs to be served."
Anderson collapsed January 5 at the Bay County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp program in Panama City, Florida. He
had complained earlier in the day, his first at the facility, of breathing difficulties while running around a track as part
of the admission process.
At one point, Anderson told the officers he couldn't breathe well enough to continue running. The report said he
resisted repeated attempts to get him to complete the exercise by pulling away, tensing his body, struggling and
balling his fists.
Videotape of the incident showed Anderson being forced to the ground by various takedown methods, including
knee strikes to his thigh, pressure points to his ear and punches to his arms.
Later, another camp staffer hit him from behind, forcing Anderson to lurch forward. A nurse stood by, and on at least
one occasion she determined his vital signs were normal.
Anderson was taken away on a stretcher and died later that day.
Adams reported that the blows "did not contribute to his death."
Adams studied the video, having it enhanced by engineers at NASA. The intake process at the facility is videotaped
as a matter of policy.
'Offender refused to comply with instructions' The boot camp staff prepared a report detailing the techniques used
on Anderson, including holding ammonia capsules under his nose, knee strikes, a straight arm-bar takedown,
bending his wrist and pouring water over his head.
To explain the use of force, one staff member wrote, "I ordered [the] offender to stop resisting and relax his arms.
Offender refused to comply with those instructions."
Some experts on juvenile justice have called it excessive force. But the sheriff's office said Anderson was restrained
for being "uncooperative." The family has accused the officers of murder and demanded an independent
investigation.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush assigned the case to Mark Ober, the special prosecutor in Tampa, who in turn ordered the
second autopsy and appointed Adams to conduct it. Bush on Thursday said he was "disturbed" by the medical
examiner's reports and considers the camp guards' actions "deplorable."
"I assure Gina Jones and Robert Anderson that the state remains committed to providing any resources State
Attorney Ober deems necessary to complete this investigation as quickly as possible," he said in a written statement.
"We all have one goal, and that is to see justice is served for Martin Lee Anderson."
The state has shut down the Bay County boot camp. At the time of Anderson's death, Florida operated five boot
camps for troubled children as a substitute for prison.
The Bay County Sheriff's Office said the boot camp's closure had nothing to do with Anderson's case but also said
the eight people involved in the incident were not offered new jobs.
A federal probe into whether Anderson's civil rights were violated by the use of excessive force is also under way,
according to the U.S. attorney's office. The investigation was requested by the boy's parents and local leaders.
Adams and Ober said they would not comment on the case beyond their respective news releases announcing the
results of the autopsy.
CNN's John Zarrella and Susan Candiotti contributed to this report.