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Ex-official: Resisting boot camp coverup cost him job

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published November 18, 2006

TALLAHASSEE - A 10-year Department of Juvenile Justice employee said Friday he was fired because he wouldn't go along with a coverup of the seriousness of an altercation between guards at a boot camp and a boy who later died.

Stephen Meredith, who worked in the DJJ's inspector general's office until being fired in August, said he viewed a videotape of the confrontation between guards and 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson, who died the next day. He said he asserted immediately that policies were violated, but others didn't agree.

"I believe the reason that I was terminated is because I wouldn't go along with misrepresentations related to Mr. Anderson's death," Meredith said.

DJJ spokeswoman Cynthia Lorenzo denied Meredith's claims. She said he was told why he was fired, and it "was entirely unrelated to the Martin Lee Anderson investigation." She said department policy didn't allow her to divulge the reason.

Meredith, 40, said he and two other DJJ officials who saw the tape participated in a conference call with DJJ Secretary Anthony Schembri and others shortly after Anderson died last January.

Meredith said he told the others Anderson "wasn't resisting and without the assistance of guards it appeared he couldn't even stand on his own" and that a guard forced an ammonia capsule up his nose, which Meredith believed was a policy violation.

He said another staffer agreed, but the third person who had seen the video downplayed the guards' actions. He said the staffer who agreed with his assessment has also been forced to leave the department. He declined to name that person.

Meredith said he had no disciplinary notes in his personnel file. Lorenzo said she couldn't comment on that either.

Meredith, who is black, initially filed a complaint with the Florida Commission on Human Relations because he thought his firing might be race-related, his attorney, Marie Mattox said. Mattox said she filed a new complaint alleging retaliation.

[Last modified November 17, 2006, 23:58:27]