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Activists rally during autopsy

A final determination in the death of a boot camp inmate is expected to take eight weeks.

By KEVIN GRAHAM
Published March 13, 2006

TAMPA - A Hillsborough County medical examiner and a team of pathologists worked 12 hours Monday to complete a second autopsy on Martin Lee Anderson, the 14-year-old boy who died after a beating by guards at a Panama City boot camp.

When it was all over, attorneys for the boy's family told NAACP leaders what preliminary autopsy results had found.

But those results are expected to remain secret until a news conference at 8 a.m. today.

Dale Landry, a state NAACP officer, said the family's attorney asked that the findings not be shared with the public immediately.

"The word from the lawyers is that they are encouraged based on the second autopsy," Landry said, declining to elaborate.

Final determination of a cause of death was expected to take up to eight weeks, after toxicology tests are completed.

"This is just one facet of it," Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober said Monday afternoon during a break in the procedure.

Ober was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush to oversee the investigation into Martin's death. Ober said the full investigation will take months to complete.

His family is convinced that Martin died because of the beating, not sickle cell trait, as ruled by Bay County Medical Examiner Charles Siebert.

"My baby was beaten, tortured and killed in a boot camp," the boy's mother, Gina Jones, said before the autopsy began. "All I want is justice for the ones that are responsible."

She said the guards who beat her son should be punished. So, Jones said, should the nurse, who appeared to be standing by and doing nothing.

"She could have stopped it," Jones said.

The Sickle Cell Disease Association of America Inc., based in Baltimore, also disputes Siebert's autopsy report. The group issued a statement that called Siebert's finding "completely baseless."

About 50 demonstrators joined Martin's family at the Medical Examiner's Office in Tampa, demanding answers in the teen's death. Florida NAACP president Adora Obi Nweze drove to Tampa from Miami to lead the rally, called "Resurrection For Justice."

The crowd included community activists Connie Burton, member of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement and Michelle Patty, who acted as spiritual guide to Lisa Wilkins, whose two sons died after a hit and run crash involving dance teacher Jennifer Porter.

"Our concern is that we get a truth," Obi Nweze said. "We have reason to doubt our state based on what has happened in Panama City."

[Last modified March 13, 2006, 22:45:03]