Drill instructors at a Florida Boot Camp beat a black teenager to death. Disturbing images of this violent act were captured by a surveillance camera.
Initially the officials masked the truth, saying it was a natural death, but upon a second postmortem, the skeletons were out of the closet, Martin Anderson all of 14, had been brutally beaten to death. This incident and the deliberate attempt to mask the issue, has led to widespread demand in the U.S to close down all the boot camps.Security cameras helped the truth to emerge when the footage showed seven instructors hammering blows on a flaccid body. Dr Michael Baden, a former New York City coroner, told investigators “My opinion is, he died because of what you see in the videotape.”
Gina Jones, his mother, said: “I’m glad that I did make the right decision to pull my baby out of the ground. Now that the truth is out, I want justice. I want the guards and nurses to be arrested. It’s time.”
Boot camps function on a sentiment that gives importance to offenders really breaking down because of exhaustive physical military style drills after which they work on them to get them back in one piece. But there have been enough statistics revealing gross violence by the guards and a totally inefficient system not living up to its purpose of decreasing crime.
A report in 2003 reveled that any positive changes in attitude, behaviour, problem-solving and coping skills, on behalf of the participants were only temporary, and eventually came back with spiraling effect. Shutters are down in The Bay County camp, but others in Florida continue. Investigations are on, probing Martin’s death, and racism as a cause is not being ruled out.
