Guards who murdered teenager acquitted

The life of Martin Lee Anderson was short. In January of last year, the 14-year-old was beaten and suffocated to death by guards at a boot camp for juvenile offenders run by the Bay County Sheriff's Office in Florida. The half-hour-long beating - in which the guards also shoved ammonia capsules into the teen's nose - was caught on videotape. The fact that the teenager died from it is undeniable.

Despite this, the system continues to live in denial of the facts that stare the world in the face.

Videos can be found at: http://nospank.net/7163793.200k.wmv and http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/266196-a41411-t32.html

All this because the teen was "uncooperative." He didn't do anything violent to provoke the attack. He simply refused to participate in a 1½-mile run, and did not physically resist guards' actions. After seeing both videos, which display the nasty attitude the guards had towards the youths at the facility, it's clear that the teen's "uncooperative" stance was provoked.

Ten months after the violent death, there were still no arrests in the case, even though the perpetrators were clearly identifiable by the tape. Jeb Bush dragged his feet for so long that the teen's parents accused him of covering up the incident. Meanwhile, the system of rough juvenile boot camps fell into such disfavor among the general public that they were abolished. However, Jeb Bush was a strong supporter of these deadly boot camps. In addition, there was another documented instance of guards forcing ammonia into an inmate's face, and there had been at least 180 complaints about excessive force just at the Bay County boot camp.

Last November, charges were finally filed against 7 guards and one nurse. The nurse was charged because she did nothing to stop the guards from killing the teen. However, they were only charged with aggravated manslaughter, not murder like they should have been charged with. At the recent trial, Tampa's chief medical examiner testified that the teenager died from being suffocated by the guards shoving ammonia into his nose for minutes at a time. This contradicted Bay County's discredited declaration that he died of sickle cell. (Bay County's examiner was so incompetent that, in the autopsy report of a woman killed in a hurricane, he reported that the woman's testicles and prostate gland were "unremarkable." When he ruled on Martin Lee Anderson's death, he was practicing without a medical license, because he had negligently failed to renew it.)

But of course, in this society, children are the ones who are never considered right, and guards at confinement facilities are the ones who are never considered wrong. Hell, America's the only country in the world that actually rejected an international children's rights treaty, so we knew the country is run by child haters. Because the government hates kids, America's young people are considered property until they turn 18. And in this case, it's all the worse, because Freepers and racists are allowed to serve on juries. The all-white jury let the 8 boot camp employees off the hook for murdering the black teenager. (Click on the links for more detail of the story's racial aspect.)

So now the fatal torture of one teenager by 8 assailants can be caught on videotape, and the torturers go free. That's BushAmerica.

And what were the original charges that caused Martin Lee Anderson to be sent to the detention facility in the first place? He had been caught joyriding in his grandmother's car and trespassed at school. He hadn't murdered anyone. There's no evidence he did anything violent. Only those 2 offenses. In Florida, for a 14-year-old to commit these transgressions has in effect been made a capital offense, seeing how guards can go unpunished for brutally killing a teenager detained for these offenses. (Also, for his grandmother to get the insurance money to cover the car, she was required to turn him in, so that policy exacerbated what would have otherwise been a less serious matter.)

It's not over. The NAACP says it will petition the federal government for an indictment of the guards on civil rights charges. Hopefully, federal prosecutors will throw the book at the defendants - not like we expect it to happen, considering the Bush regime supports these youth boot camps. The acquittal of the guards also led to student protests at Florida's college campuses.

As if the teen's death and the acquittal of his killers aren't bad enough, right-wing State Rep. Jimmy Patronis is sponsoring a bill to make Florida taxpayers pick up the bill for the guards' legal fees. And, after the verdict, the incompetent Bay County medical examiner strolled about the courthouse smiling and laughing like the true asshole he is. Predictably, the Free Republic liars have resorted to race-baiting as they too gloat about the verdict.

Since the system's side wants to be nasty, it's my duty to point out that the photo of one of the murderous guards at the trial makes it look like he left his teeth embedded in the cock he drew on his autographed John Ashcroft photo.

What the fuck kind of boot camp does this shit anyway? The military has boot camp, but I doubt that they make recruits inhale ammonia or deliberately torture them to death. I believe it was Kentucky populist Gatewood Galbraith who observed that "full employment" in BushAmerica means 50% of the people are in jail and the other 50% are jail guards. It's called the people processing industry. It's a sign of the Freeper-style me-ism that plagues America.

The guards who were acquitted are nothing but thugs - and now similarly thuggish guards in other states will see the acquittal verdict as a sign that they have carte blanche to kill their inmates just as the youth in this case was killed. What ever happened to accountability?

(Source: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16061084.htm;
http://nospank.net/n-p68r.htm;
http://nospank.net/n-q51r.htm;
http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/262339.html;
http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/266196.html;
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/10/12/bootcamp.death.ap/index.html;
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2007/oct/13/boot-camp-defendants-acquitted-all-counts)