NAACP: Florida Boot Camp LIED in Death of 15 Year Old Black Boy Suffocated by Corrections Officers
Monday, April 3, 2006 at 11:57PM 
Citing a report from the medical examiner for Escambia County, state NAACP leaders said Wednesday that Bay County juvenile boot camp officials withheld crucial details about Martin Lee Anderson's encounter with guards from doctors who struggled to save his life. The medical legal investigation report states that the 14-year-old was exercising for approximately 15 minutes and passed out after telling guards "I can't do it anymore." But the report does not mention that Anderson was hit, kicked or dragged around an exercise yard during a 30-minute videotaped encounter with guards before an ambulance was called. "The family continues to suffer as they sit back and look at this horror that is just evolving out of this whole thing," said Dale Landry, criminal and juvenile justice chairman for the Florida NAACP. Waylon Graham, an attorney for Lt. Charles Helms, the officer who was second in command of the boot camp, said he believes the report shows the hospital where Anderson died is trying to protect itself from a lawsuit. A nationally known pathologist, Dr. Michael Baden, said after observing a second autopsy that Anderson likely was suffocated during the confrontation at the camp. Results of the second autopsy haven't been completed. [more]