Anderson trial tells two tales of a town

By SUE CARLTON, Times Columnist
Published October 5, 2007

The jurors, the accused, the courtroom so divided you could label one side "guilty" and the other "not guilty" like guests at a wedding - all went still when the video played.

Up front, Martin Lee Anderson's mother gave a low moan. You couldn't read the face of the judge, a working man's Harrison Ford, or the jurors, who did not take their eyes off the screen.

What will they make of that infamous, silent boot camp video of a 14-year-old boy manhandled by seven guards as a nurse looks on?

The defense: What you see, folks, are drill sergeants doing their job, applying standard use-of-force "hammer strikes," "knee strikes" and "pain compliance techniques" on an offender who wouldn't be there if he hadn't done wrong. How could they know he had a medical condition called sickle cell trait?

A defense lawyer in cowboy boots whose first name really is "Hoot" made boot camp sound like a place for feral children who had to be taught not just respect for authority, but how to use toothpaste and pull up their pants. I was surprised he didn't say "britches."

It would be a mistake, however, to dismiss the defense as yahoos. You sense minds that are sharp, empathetic, even. This was a tragedy, they told the jury. Just not a crime.

The state made its case: Anderson collapsed after the guards pummeled him and put ammonia capsules to his nose and covered his mouth so he couldn't breathe in anything else. Watch the video, they said. Watch.

You watch, and it seems to defy logic that what is happening to him did not contribute to or cause his collapse and his death. But wait - defense experts will soon be on the scene to say otherwise.

Families filled benches behind the defense: men in lapel pins and crew cuts, women who would offer a stranger a cough drop across the aisle, a lady fanning herself with a ribboned straw hat.

Behind the state's table: college students, most black and dressed in black, standing together before they sat in unison in a show of solidarity.

Folks on both sides wore crosses around their necks - God was on their side, maybe, or they just needed him to get through this.

The guards - Dickens, McFadden, Helms, Enfinger, Garrett, Hauck and Walsh - each stood to look into the faces of the jury as their attorneys introduced them. They are husbands, fathers, retired military, working stiffs. They did not look like evil men who set out one morning to kill a boy. Which makes the jury's job that much more complicated.

How small a town is Panama City? Just across the street from the courthouse where the guards and nurse are being tried sits the camp. Shut down like the rest in Florida after the video made national news, it sits abandoned, razor-wire gates rusty.

Tired of scenes of a boy collapsing and dragged upright again, I left and drove to where Martin lived. It is literally on the other side of the tracks, a scrubby street of ramshackle houses.

A few blocks over is the cemetery, the grass too high, fence sagging. He is there, flanked by stone angels, not a hero, not a monster, just gone.

What will the jury call what happened to Martin Lee Anderson? Sad comes to mind. And sorry. And wrong.

[Last modified October 4, 2007, 23:51:43]