A jury acquitted seven former boot camp guards and a nurse of manslaughter in the death of a 14-year-old boy Martin Lee Anderson whose beating by drill instructors was caught on videotape.
The boy’s controversial death resulted in the ending of Florida’s boot camps for juvenile offenders. The guards, who were supposed to help the teens at the get-tough facility, were seen on tape punching and kneeing the boy on the morning of Jan. 5, 2006.
The Black teen died at a hospital one day after the altercation. Guards insisted they followed all the rules and thought Anderson was feigningillness.
The case has always been a complex one, because of two different and extremely controversial autopsies. One report claimed the boy died of a blood disorder and the other concluded that the cause of death was asphyxiation from the capsules forced in his mouth by guards.