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Hundreds of students protest boot camp death

In the culmination of a weeklong protest, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton walked arm-in-arm with the parents of a boy who died at a juvenile boot camp.

By AARON SHAROCKMAN and ALEX LEARY
Published April 21, 2006

	[Times photo: Melissa Lyttle] Cortavia Mullins, 22, holds a picture of Martin Lee Anderson, surrounded by fellow FSU students as they listen to speakers during the Rally for Justice at the Capitol Courtyard in Tallahassee, Friday. Watch video Parents meet with Bush on boot camp death FDLE chief steps down

TALLAHASSEE - Hundreds of students converged on Florida's Capitol Friday, escalating their emotional weeklong protests over the death of a 14-year-old boy who was punched and kneed by guards in a videotaped scuffle at a North Florida boot camp.

The racially-charged march was led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton, who walked arm-in-arm with Anderson's mother, Gina Jones, and his father, Robert Anderson.

The protest formed at the Leon County Civic Center and ended in the brick courtyard between the old and new Capitols, where the civil rights leaders urged students to keep pressure on Gov. Jeb Bush to take action in Anderson's death.

"You keep on marching," Jackson exhorted students from Florida A&M University, Florida State and Tallahassee Community College. "Don't let them turn you around. Don't let them stop you. We want justice."

Amid a rising tide of frustration with the pace of the investigation, Bush is putting pressure on the leader of the probe, Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober, to make an "expeditious conclusion" of the case.

"People want to know when the autopsy results will be made public," Bush said in his two-page letter to Ober Thursday. "They want to know why Martin's body was moved from Pensacola to Panama City."

The marchers chanted "Justice delayed, justice denied" and held signs with pictures of Martin in his funeral casket and "This is what democracy looks like." Most marchers were African American, as was Anderson, who was in a boot camp for troubled offenders after violating probation following the theft of his grandmother's Jeep.

Protesters wore black and white T-shirts with the words: "The next Emmett Till?", a reference to the 14-year-old Mississippi boy who was brutally murdered after being accused of whistling at a white woman in 1955.

Members of the Legislature's black caucus pumped their fists in the air as they rallied the crowd. The students, some of them staged a two-day sit-in this week at Bush's office that ended Thursday, said they will continue to protest until and Anderson's autopsy is made public and those responsible for his death are brought to justice.

Robyn Burrell, a 20-year-old pre-med student at FAMU, wore a Band-Aid over her eye in a reference to Anderson's beating and the Emmitt Till T-shirt. She said the point of the march was to send a message to Bush.

"I hope he sees how important this is to us, and I know he says he can't do anything about it," Burrell said. "But he can support us, and go to the people who can do something and they can find justice."

Referring to the tape of Anderson being beaten by boot-camp guards, Sharpton said, "We come to Florida today to tell the governor, 'Let's go to the tape.'^"

Sharpton ridiculed the notion that Anderson's death was caused by the sickle cell trait. "Many of us feel Martin was killed because of the African-American trait."

One marcher held a sign reading: "Guy Tunnell you can run but you cannot hide."

The march came one day after the abrupt and still-unexplained resignation of Tunnell as the commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for the past three years.

Tunnell, 54, is a former head of the Bay County sheriff's office, the agency that ran the boot camp where Anderson died. In a series of e-mails with his successor, Frank McKeithen, Tunnell lashed out at critics of the boot camp, and criticized a lack of state funding for the program.

Bush confirmed Friday that Tunnell made an "inappropriate" remark Tuesday during a meeting with leaders of state agencies. The Miami Herald, quoting unnamed sources, reported Friday that Tunnell disparaged Jackson as "Jesse James" and likened U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., to terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Times staff writer Aaron Sharockman contributed to this report, and information from The Associated Press was used.

[Last modified April 21, 2006, 12:43:21]