Panama City, Fla.
A videotape released this week shows guards at a state-run boot camp for juvenile offenders hitting and restraining a 14-year-old boy for a half-hour on the day he died. A coroner ruled last month that the boy, Martin Lee Anderson, died as the result of internal bleeding from a previously undiagnosed blood disorder. But the boy’s parents said the tape, which officials released under court order, indicates that abuse may have killed him. “They picked on him so much, ’til they murdered my baby,” said his mother, Gina Jones. The closed circuit video shows up to nine officers striking Anderson with their hands and knees while the boy remains limp. At one point a nurse checks him with a stethoscope, and he is eventually carried away on a stretcher.
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