They used "pain-compliance techniques" against Martin Lee Anderson

[madfloridian]

That hardened-type criminal who was 14 years of age. They had been especially trained in the techniques to use against these teen-agers. They refused to call it beating.

It was called "pain-compliance techniques."

They were acquitted. One man in the community there said "From what I've heard, it (the boy's death) was not something that could have been prevented"

Another said: "I feel it's sad the kid died, but they didn't have the proof about what killed him," Witts said.

Travesty of justice in Florida

The latter had been following the case "closely."

Trial: Guard saw ‘mixed signals’

This article is from before the verdict.



Former Bay County Boot Camp guard Raymond Hauck consoles former camp nurse Kristin Schmidt after Schmidt testified Tuesday during the fifth day of the trial of eight former boot camp employees accused in the 2006 death of inmate Martin Lee Anderson.

Former boot camp drill instructors said Tuesday they would have changed a range of things on Jan. 5, 2006, when Martin Lee Anderson collapsed. “Looking back on this incident and knowing how it turned out, would you do anything differently?” attorney Bob Sombathy asked Patrick Garrett. “Everything,” Garrett replied, his face flushing and tears coming to his eyes. Former boot camp Lt. Charles Helms Jr. would have changed one thing. “I wouldn’t have let him in the boot camp program,” Helms said to the same question during his testimony earlier in the day. Garrett, Helms, Raymond Hauck and Kristin Schmidt took the stand in the fifth day of testimony in a trial to resolve the criminal charges levied against them in Anderson’s death. Former boot camp drill instructors Garrett, Helms, Hauck, Henry Dickens, Charles Enfinger, Henry McFadden Jr. and Joseph Walsh II, along with former camp nurse Schmidt, face charges of aggravated manslaughter of a child and 30 years in prison each if convicted as charged.

I have no sympathy with his tears.

I am alarmed at what triggered the anger of the guards. The training must be so geared to respond that there is no room for doubt at all.

Garrett, a sergeant at the camp, was around Anderson through most of his interaction with the guards. He said he was confused by the mixed signals coming from Anderson.

“He’s answering questions, and then he lets his body go limp. His ability to talk and his ability to breathe was one sign,” Garrett said. “Letting his body drop was giving me another sign.”

And though Martin Lee Anderson had just that day come to boot camp, they could not allow him to let his body go limp.

Garrett, 30, of Lynn Haven, said Anderson was talking throughout most of the interaction — saying that he was tired and wouldn’t finish a required physical assessment run. Garrett said Anderson got angry a few times and would tense up. That’s when the guards would throw him to the ground or use pain-compliance techniques, such as pressure points.

He was just a 14 year old kid, fellows.

I had to edit to add this GAO report via the TimesOnline UK. It is totally shocking.

1,619 incidents of child abuse in 33 states in 2005.

[Richard Steele]

1. I'll call it what it was- a brutal murder. nm

[rodeodance]

2. I am surprized they were not at least charged with agravated assult!

[JeffR]

3. This is outrageous

This country is sick, deeply sick.

[madfloridian]

10. Yes, it is indeed.

Be sure to read the TimesOnline UK article I posted below. That is the first I have seen of that GAO report.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2641635.ece

It is torture, and we are doing to our teen-agers.

[JeffR]

11. Shit. Why do I have to read an English report on this?

Because our media Stateside suck so damn bad, I guess.

Horrifying article.

[annabanana]

4. "especially trained in the techniques "

"pain-compliance techniques"

Who here reads this and thinks "enhanced interrogation techniques"


Shit stinks no matter what you call it.

[madfloridian]

12. I see a state rep might try to get help on the guards' legal bills.

Wonder if he will do the same for the family of Martin Lee Anderson.

http://www.newsherald.com/headlines/article.display.php?a=3917

"PANAMA CITY

State Rep. Jimmy Patronis said Saturday he has heard the rumors that he is sponsoring a bill to pay eight former boot camp employees’ legal fees.

Although there is no such bill in the works, Patronis said he would be glad to talk with them.

Jurors on Friday acquitted former boot camp drill instructors Henry Dickens, Charles Enfinger, Patrick Garrett, Raymond Hauck, Charles Helms Jr., Henry McFadden Jr. and Joseph Walsh II and nurse Kristin Schmidt of any criminal wrongdoing in the death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson.

After the verdict, Helms’ attorney, Waylon Graham, told reporters Patronis was sponsoring a bill to have the state pay the eight defendants’ legal fees."

And damned if they are not turning it into a mission about sickle cell anemia...a good thing, but they are trying to justify the verdict.

It is called torture.

[daninthemoon]

5. In recent years the DOD has enacted increasingly strict guidelines

on what DI's at actual military boot camps are allowed to do. These are places where grown men and women are being trained to survive actual armed combat. I think we need to question whether these teen boot camps are even appropriate, and certainly we need to question what safety guidelines they follow. I suspect it rests with the individual institution. This particular case is absolutely disgusting, and I sure hope some federal agency can take action. From what I understand, the teen was sent there because he had stolen (borrowed without permission) his own Grandmother's car. I can't imagine how devastated that poor family must be.

[DBoon]

6. "the US does not use torture"

we use "pain compliance techniques" instead

[Turbineguy]

7. "pain-compliance techniques"

One of those nice new expressions.

Chernobyl was due to a "prompt critical excursion".

[madfloridian]

8. GAO report: 1,619 incidents of child abuse in 33 states in 2005.

A shocking look at our country from the Times Online UK

Torture, starvation and death: how American boot camps abuse boys

The Government Accountability Office, the US Congress investigative arm, identified 1,619 incidents of child abuse in 33 states in 2005. It selected ten deaths since 1990 for special investigation in boot camps and “wilderness programmes”.

Parents send their children to the privately run camps in the hope that their strict regimes and outdoor pursuits will instil discipline. But the findings suggest that instructors often go too far in trying to teach them good behaviour.

“Examples of abuse include youths being forced to eat their own vomit, denied adequate food, being forced to lie in urine or faeces, being kicked, beaten and thrown to the ground,” Gregory Kutz, a GAO investigator, told a congressional committee.

One teenager, Mr Kutz said, was “forced to use a toothbrush to clean a toilet, then forced to use that toothbrush on their own teeth”. The abuse that preceded the deaths of the ten teenagers was particularly shocking. “If you walked in partway through my presentation you might have assumed I was talking about human rights violations in a Third World country,” Mr Kutz said.

Speaking in front of photographs of his emaciated son an hour before his death, Bob Bacon — the father of Aaron — described how his son had been starved, with his weight falling from 9st 4lb (59kg) to 7st 10lb in three weeks. He said that he and his wife had sent Aaron to the Northstar Expeditions in Escalante, Utah, in the hope that it would get him away from the drugs that he had started dabbling in at school.

Sickening.

Bay County, Florida, is only the tip of the iceberg.

[madfloridian]

9. "Folks on both sides wore crosses around their necks..God was on their side"

Folks on both sides wore crosses around their necks - God was on their side, maybe, or they just needed him to get through this.

Anderson trial tells two tales of a town

How small a town is Panama City? Just across the street from the courthouse where the guards and nurse are being tried sits the camp. Shut down like the rest in Florida after the video made national news, it sits abandoned, razor-wire gates rusty.

Tired of scenes of a boy collapsing and dragged upright again, I left and drove to where Martin lived. It is literally on the other side of the tracks, a scrubby street of ramshackle houses.

A few blocks over is the cemetery, the grass too high, fence sagging. He is there, flanked by stone angels, not a hero, not a monster, just gone.

What will the jury call what happened to Martin Lee Anderson? Sad comes to mind. And sorry. And wrong.

Photo courtesy of Ybor City Stogie

[NOLALady]

13. No lethal weapons aka Tennis Shoes were involved.

[Indenturedebtor]

14. Our society is obsessed with punishment

It's disgusting and it will be one of the many facets of our undoing as a nation.

[flashl]

15. Florida is McPrison Central

And, the prison industrial complex base of operation. PICs are the #1 U.S. employer, therefore, the verdict is no surprise.

[madfloridian]

16. And I find myself wondering about another growing prison...faith-based prisons.

In our county they have them, they have baptisms in the jail. They call them God Pods sometines.

I am skeptical.

[flashl]

17. Its about the "Benjamins" its a for-profit franchised Bonanza.

Watch their stocks.

[madfloridian]

18. Palm Beach Post editorial: "Panhandle Justice"

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2007/10/15/a6a_leadedit_bootcamp_1015.html

"Monday, October 15, 2007

Friday's acquittal of seven Panama City boot camp guards who beat a 14-year-old boy until he fell limp and later died was as predictable as it was outrageous.

Outrageous because a video recorded the guards on Jan. 5, 2006, undeniably kicking, hitting and shoving Martin Lee Anderson against a fence and to the ground, even after he had fallen.

Outrageous because a nurse, also acquitted Friday, stood by, calling 911 only after the boy had been abused for 40 minutes.

Outrageous because the coverup of Martin Lee Anderson's killing was so blatant that then-Gov. Jeb Bush appointed Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober to handle the investigation.

Outrageous because an independent medical examiner, a pediatric critical-care specialist, a pediatric hematologist and experts in cardiac pathology, neuropathology and forensic pathology, determined that the guards suffocated Martin Lee Anderson by placing their hands over his mouth while forcing ammonia fumes into his nose."

It then goes into why it was so predictable. And that part is really scary indeed.