An attorney for the defense says the paramilitary atmosphere surrounding the beating of Martin Anderson at a Bay County, Florida boot camp last January was "just another day at the office." Said defense attorney Walter Smith:
The guards saw Anderson not as a 14-year-old child, but as ''a six-foot, 168-pound adult felon,'' Smith said. He had been sent to the camp for a probation violation after trespassing at a school and stealing his grandmother's car from a church parking lot.
Smith, who represents guard Charles Enfinger, said Anderson's file had been marked with a red dot -- the highest of three levels of offenders -- indicating the he had the potential for violence.
''These are not rogue officers who are trying to punish a kid,'' he said. ``Nobody is going to say that those hammer strikes or knee strikes were unlawful, they were strictly according to procedure.''
Defense attorneys maintain that Anderson's death was unavoidable because he had undiagnosed sickle cell trait, a genetic blood disorder. The usually benign disorder can cause blood cells to shrivel into a sickle shape and limit their ability to carry oxygen under physical stress.
Earlier Monday, prosecutors rested their case after the chief medical director for Florida's Department of Juvenile Justice testified that nurse Kristin Schmidt, who stood by during the altercation, did not tell her supervisors that the teen was struck and forced to inhale ammonia.
Smith said later that camp employees did not consider ammonia tablets as a use of force against the offenders, so they did not find it necessary to put that in their reports.
The trial is pretty much going according to rote -- the use of force was "justified" because of Anderson's size (he had no criminal record and had only been there one day, so i'm not sure how they determined that he was a threat), the tape magnifies the horror but it's "misleading", it was sickle cell trait that killed Anderosn, not the brutal half-hour beating by seven adult men, and the conflicting autopsies constitute reasonable doubt. Throw in an all-white jury in Jena-esque Bay County and you've got a recipe for acquittal.
