Jackson Free Press

This is not unlike what officials were doing to the children of Mississippi in our training schools for decades. It is simply unbelievable that this crap is allowed to go on in 2006 to poor kids, and especially poor children of color—the people with the least rights or respect in our country. Then, of course, the mother-f*cks try to cover it up. As far as I'm concerned, every one of these guards should go to prison for the rest of their lives, along with any officials who authorize such torture of children. AP is reporting:

Guards at a juvenile detention boot camp struck and restrained a teenager for a half-hour on the day before he died, a videotape released Friday shows. The boy's parents said the security tape raises questions about an autopsy that found that 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson died from internal bleeding caused by a genetic blood disorder, and not from any injuries suffered in the Jan. 5 altercation.

"Martin didn't deserve this right here - at all," the boy's mother, Gina Jones, said after viewing the tape Friday at her lawyer's office in Tallahassee. "I couldn't even watch the whole tape. Me as a mom, I knew my baby was in pain and I am in pain just watching his pain."

Anderson, who entered the camp because of a probation violation, complained of breathing difficulties and collapsed while doing push-ups, sit-ups and other exercises. He died the next day at a Pensacola hospital.

Officials for the county Sheriff's Office, which runs the camp, said guards restrained Anderson after he became uncooperative during the exercises.

On the 80-minute tape, which has no sound, as many as nine guards can be seen wrestling Anderson to the ground and restraining him. The boy appeared limp for most of the ordeal and never appeared to offer significant resistance. While he lay motionless on the ground, a guard struck him several times, either on his arm or torso.

At one point, a guard struck him from behind, lifting his feet off the ground. At the beginning, as the guards are pinning him against a pole, they struck him three times with their knees.
It's not clear from the tape how hard the blows were or where they landed. The physical confrontation lasted about 30 minutes.

Previous Comments

ID

104914

Comment

Ever notice how "boot camp" is usually synonymous with "a place to abuse children out of mind and out of sight"? This crap has to end.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-17T18:44:34-06:00