Tension After Boot Camp Acquittals

PANAMA CITY, Fla. — Tensions ran high after eight former boot camp workers were acquitted of manslaughter in the death of a 14-year-old inmate who was videotaped being punched and kicked.The case sparked outrage and spelled the end of Florida’s system of juvenile boot camps, but it took a jury just 90 minutes yesterday to decide that the death of Martin Lee Anderson was not a crime.Anger over the verdict was obvious outside the courtroom, where bystanders screamed “murderer” at a former guard, Henry Dickens, as he described his relief at the verdict.“I am truly, truly sorry this happened. Myself, I love kids,” Mr. Dickens, 60, said. He said Anderson “wasn’t beaten. Those techniques were taught to us and used for a purpose.”Anderson died a day after being hit and kicked by Mr. Dickens and six other guards as a nurse watched, a 30-minute confrontation that drew protests in the state capital.The defendants testified they followed the rules at a get-tough facility where young offenders often feigned illness to avoid exercise. Their attorneys said that Anderson died not from rough treatment, but from a previously undiagnosed blood disorder.The boy’s mother, Gina Jones, stormed out of the courtroom. “I cannot see my son no more. Everybody see their family members. It’s wrong,” she said.Anderson’s family repeatedly sat through the painful video as it played during testimony. They had long sought a trial, claiming local officials tried to cover up the case. The conservative Florida Panhandle county is surrounded by military bases and residents are known for their respect for law and order.“You kill a dog, you go to jail,” Gina Jones’ lawyer, Benjamin Crump, said outside court. “You kill a little black boy and nothing happens.”The guards, who are white, black and Asian, stood quietly as the judge read the verdicts. The all-white jury was escorted away from the courthouse and did not comment.Special prosecutor Mark Ober said in a statement he was “extremely disappointed.”

Tension After Boot Camp Acquittals

Tension After Boot Camp Acquittals

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