It Gets Worse
CNN reports on the results of the second autopsy on Martin Lee Anderson: Boot camp guards killed teen
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.”
The best I can say about these people is that they weren’t trained, except there was a nurse there and she should have known that if someone is having trouble breathing, covering their mouth and using an ammonia capsule is not the answer.
The mindset is that the inmates are slackers who need discipline, which is probably true for 90% of the inmates, but there is the other 10% that is the real problem. If Anderson did have sickle cell anemia, as claimed by the Bay County medical examiner, he wouldn’t be in shape for the physical activity of the camp and that should have been part of his medical record.
4 comments
It was his first day there. He told them he couldn’t breath well enough to continue running. This is horrible!
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.
They hired people to run basic training, not to deal with teenagers. They didn’t understand the difference, and weren’t properly trained.
I went through basic training in the Air Force and they never touched anyone. They didn’t have to, they knew what they were doing.
Bryan,
Have to disagree with some of this. First of all, the juveniles at a boot camp are not “inmates,” although some would like to treat them as harshly.
Second, the whole “boot camp” approach to juvenile justice has been thoroughly, and repeatedly, discredited in the professional literature throughout the world. If you have Lexis or Questia or some similar service, check out “juvenile” and “boot camps.” It really is astounding; one of the few areas of criminology where there is more than a consensus — it’s virtually unanimous and has been for over a decade.
Bootcamps for juveniles serve only one purpose — they are a feel-good bone sycophantic politicians throw to right-wingers to make them suppose the politicians are “doing something” about “crime in the streets.” To paraphrase from memory one study, the main constituency being served is composed of those ‘who fondly look back on their own army experience, confusing warm memories of their youth with sound correctional practices.’
Other than Jeb Bush and a few like-minded pols always eager to throw more Christians to the lions if it’ll make the plebes happy, there is no one of stature who supports juvenile boot camps as an effective correctional technique. Real-world study after study after study have shown them to be counter-productive and highly risky to life.
Anderson is not the only juvenile to die in such a hell hole. It’s happened in a number of other states, too. That is why, I suspect, even the Florida legislature didn’t have the stomach to let this charade continue and closed all of them down. There simply is no evidence they work. Nada.
The true test for whether our politicians really want to do something about juvenile justice is in how well they fund juvenile correctional programs that DO work. There, I am sorry to say, the Florida legislature fails miserably. I don’t have the comparative budget numbers at hand, but since Jeb Bush took office the state Department of Juvenile Justice has been starved so badly that not long ago they “amended” their policy manual to DOUBLE the “minimum acceptable” case load per juvenile probation officer standard.
How Rumsfeldian. If you can’t advance the ball, then move the goalposts.
The problem with boot camps is that they’ve never been tried. Boot camp is basic training, which indicates that those undergoing the process are being molded for a purpose. The purpose behind military boot camp is to subjugate the individual to the group and impress on them the need for obedience and discipline.
If the state had jobs waiting for these kids at the end of the process, it would make sense.
This was his first day. At the real boot camp he would have been brought to the camp at night, had a meal, had his sleep interrupted by a fire drill, then marched around for a couple of days of “hurry up an wait”, with haircuts, shots, uniforms, lectures, etc. It is a while before the physical stuff starts.
It is a group process to build group identity, that’s what boot camp is all about. If they don’t have a job at the end of the process, they are just organizing juvenile gangs.
They are using boot camp as a punishment, not as a training regimen.