It’s a real life horror story.
Remember the story of the Florida teen whose death was viewed all over the world in a videotape, as he was surrounded — engulfed, really — by a sea of boot camp guards? The one where the autopsy set off a firestorm because it blamed his death on sickle cell anemia? In other words: natural causes.
A NEW autopsy found something slightly different: it states that he died due to suffocation…due to guards hands being over his mouth:
A 14-year-old boy kicked and punched by guards at a juvenile boot camp died because the sheriff’s officials suffocated him, a medical examiner said Friday, contradicting a colleague who blamed the death on a usually benign blood disorder.
“Martin Anderson’s death was caused by suffocation due to actions of the guards at the boot camp,” said Dr. Vernard Adams, who conducted the second autopsy.
Adams said the suffocation was caused by hands blocking the boy’s mouth, as well as the “forced inhalation of ammonia fumes” that caused his vocal cords to spasm, blocking his upper airway. The guards had said in an incident report that they used ammonia capsules to keep Anderson conscious.
The autopsy report draws no conclusions about whether Anderson’s death was a homicide or an accident.
That will be a separate criminal and/or civil issue. But the real issue now hanging out there is: how did the first autopsy come to the conclusion that it was sickle cell anemia? Have the results of that autopsy been analyzed? Some say it’s an error; others have from the start alleged a cover up. MORE:
Anderson had been sent to the boot camp for violating probation by trespassing at a school after he and his cousins were charged with stealing their grandmother’s car from a church parking lot.
He collapsed while doing push-ups, sit-ups, running laps and other exercises that were part of his admission process at the camp. The sheriff’s office said force was used on Anderson because he was uncooperative.
Anderson’s body was exhumed after a camp surveillance videotape surfaced showing the guards roughing him up Jan. 5, a day before he died. His family had questioned the initial finding by Dr. Charles Siebert, the Bay County Medical Examiner, that the boy died of complications of sickle cell trait.
Meanwhile, Governor Jeb Bush said he’s disturbed by the findings and found the guard’s actions “deplorable.” Florida’s attorney general suggests that Seibert could be suspended and there could be arrests. Seibert stands by his original report. An attorney for one of the guards calls all of it a “witch hunt.”
And teenage Anderson, whose videotaped final moments were apparently agonizing ones, remains silent forever.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.