BY BRENT KALLESTAD
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

An amended $5 million claims bill for the family of a teenager who died after being brutally murdered roughed up by guards at a state-supervised boot camp passed the Senate on Wednesday and was sent to the governor.

Gov. Charlie Crist and black lawmakers had led the effort to compensate the family of Martin Lee Anderson, who died in January 2006 shortly after being kneed, struck and having ammonia tablets held to his nose at the military-style facility run by the Bay County Sheriff’s Office in Panama City.

The state already has paid Anderson’s parents $200,000, the most allowed by law without legislative approval. The bill would pay the remaining $4.8 million of the proposed settlement.

“While no dollar amount will return their son to his family, compensating them for this tragedy is the right thing to do,” Crist said.

The sheriff’s office has settled separately with the Anderson family for $2.4 million. Seven guards and a nurse employed at the camp face manslaughter charges.

Seven guards and a nurse have been charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child in the death of Martin Lee Anderson, the 14-year-old boy who died in January a day after he entered a Bay County juvenile boot camp.

State Attorney Mark Ober, special prosecutor in the case, today announced the charges against the seven, who are being arrested this morning.

Charged are Henry Dickens, Charles Enfinger, Patrick Garrett, Raymond Hauck, Charles Helms Jr., Henry McFadden Jr., Kristin Schmidt and Joseph Walsh II, according to a filing Ober made today in state circuit court in Bay County.

“We hope at the end of the day justice will be served and at the end of the day the Martin Lee Anderson family will have the answers to the questions they deserve,” said Gov. Jeb Bush this morning.

Ober’s charges said in part the defendants, “did cause the death of Martin Lee Anderson by culpable negligence, without lawful justification or excuse, by neglecting Martin Lee Anderson by failure or omission to provide Martin Lee Anderson with care, supervision or services necessary to maintain his physical or mental health …”

The announcement comes almost 11 months after Martin Lee Anderson collapsed on the exercise yard at the Bay County sheriff’s boot camp in Panama City on January 5th.

Guards said he was uncooperative and refused to continue participating in exercises that were part of the boot camp’s intake processes.

He died early the next morning in Pensacola.

This past January, boot-camp Sadist employees from the Bay County, Florida Sheriff’s Office beat and suffocated 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson before he collapsed and died. The nurse stood by watching, doing nothing..
The state of Florida attempted a cover up that did not work.
Jeb Bush apparently lied to the family promising swift justice attempting to appease a family that was grief stricken promised swift justice.

Heh.
Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen told The Associated Press that he rejected a $3 million settlement because, “The investigation is incomplete and still pending at this time.” They have filed a 40 million dollar suit.
In my opinion, it’s to damn bad it wasn’t 400 million.
Did they not see the videotape of the sadist guards beating Martin Anderson? Believe me that jurors in a civil trial will.

The investigation which was removed from the corrupt hands of Florida Department of Law Enforcement chief Guy Tunnell, and assigned to Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober, “is incomplete and still pending” seven months later.Makes me wonder..

No charges have been filed against the seven guards. There has been no resonable explanation for how the original coroner in the case, Charles Siebert, ruled from a suspended license that Martin Anderson died from an undiagnosed sickle cell trait.

Jeb Bush lied misspoke again when he promised reform. Change the name of the camps to “STAR” and then don’t fund them. Jeb Bush, you really have some answering to do..
Martin Lee Anderson’s family has gone to civil court. Perhaps the jurors will cry with and for them, I hope so…
This could have been your kid.