Boot Camp Where Boy Died Will Close

In early January, Martin Lee Anderson died after an altercation with guards at the Bay County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp in Panama City, in the Panhandle. A surveillance camera videotape, made public last week, shows the guards dragging the limp boy around the grounds, kneeing and striking him several times.

Camp officials said Anderson, who had just arrived, was uncooperative when ordered to do push-ups, sit-ups and other exercises. He died the next day in a Pensacola hospital.

A state medical examiner ruled that the young African American boy's death was caused not by the incident but by bleeding due to sickle cell anemia, a genetic blood condition. Florida's top official in the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People called that finding ridiculous and demanded an outside investigation.

"It's absolutely asinine," said the state conference president, Adora Obi Nweze. "Many, many people have sickle cell, and they are alive today."

Two state lawmakers who got an early look at the videotape expressed outrage, and Gov. Jeb Bush has called it a "tragic case."

On Tuesday, Bush appointed a special prosecutor -- State Atty. Mark A. Ober of Hillsborough County -- to decide whether to bring criminal charges in the boy's death.

Bush also said a second autopsy might be conducted; news reports have said that the license of the medical examiner, Charles F. Siebert Jr., was expired when he signed Anderson's autopsy report.

State officials said the U.S. Justice Department also had opened an investigation into the case, the third death of a young black male in state custody in three years.

Television news programs have played scenes of the incident repeatedly. The uproar reached such magnitude that Bay County Sheriff W. Frank McKeithen said the 30-bed boot camp could no longer operate effectively. On Wednesday, he ordered it closed within 90 days.

"Drill instructors no longer feel confident in the execution of their duties," McKeithen said in a statement. "Juvenile offenders currently placed at the boot camp are taking advantage of the situation and are using the abuse hotline not for its intended purpose but as a means of retaliation."