The Boot Camp Jury Saw the Evidence in Black and White, But Not Like You Would Expect

The evidence was in black and white. Or at least that’s what I thought.

Right there in black-and-white video footage, there was a cluster of guards beating and kicking Martin Lee Anderson. Right there in that same footage a nurse looks on, dispassionately, as if they were subduing a wayward beast rather than a 14-year-old boy.

What I didn’t figure on was that the all-white jury in Panama City, Florida would see things in black and white too. Except the black that they saw was that of a boy who might have grown up to be a threat to their notions of law and order. The white that they saw was that of white authority; the authority that was being upheld by the white, black and Asian guards who killed Martin. To them, they were protectors, not murderers. So they just let ‘em go.

In the blink of 90 minutes, this jury acquitted seven guards and the nurse of aggravated manslaughter of a child. Hell, they didn’t even see fit to convict them of lesser charges of child neglect and culpable negligence.

You’d think that even as the jurors bought that silliness about how Martin died from sickle cell trait and not from being pummeled by the guards, they’d at least get them for being negligent for failing to find out whether the kids they are applying their “tough love” to are medically fit to deal with it.

But in their eyes, the black-and-white of it was that the police are always right, and those who get in their way are always wrong.

No matter that it’s a 14-year-old boy gasping for breath as they’re pressing ammonia against his nostrils.

Of course, I’m not particularly surprised at the verdict. Given the fact that Martin’s case generated marches and national outrage, it was a sure bet that homegrown jurors would rally behind the hometown team. They showed solidarity in the face of outside agitation, defying those who would imply that the way they handle their troublemakers is unfair or perverse.
So, in their eyes, the guards are the victims. Not Martin. And his short life and tragic death illustrates many of the struggles that black males face today.

First of all, as I wrote a year ago, Martin shouldn’t have been in boot camp. The transgression he committed -- taking a joy ride in his grandmother’s Jeep and violating his probation and curfew afterward -- was more about teenage angst than deep-seated criminality.
Some intensive family counseling might have been a better option than confining him to a boot camp program, a program which, like all other boot camp programs, bears scant evidence of any effectiveness.

The good thing is that in the wake of Martin’s death, Florida shut down its boot camps. But as the Panama City jury proved, what it didn’t shut down was this belief that black males must be broken in order to be rehabilitated.
And that’s wrong.

Then there’s the health thing.

Martin had sickle cell trait that hadn’t been diagnosed. While I certainly don’t buy that as the reason for his death, my question still is why? Why was it that this child was walking around with a potentially serious blood disorder that was unbeknownst to him?

Is it possible that Martin was a victim of racism in the health care system before he became a victim of racism in the criminal justice system?

Black males live seven years less than males and females of any other ethnic or racial group. They die more frequently from cancers and cardiovascular diseases than any other group.
They die because they are less likely to have adequate health care insurance, or no health coverage at all. Some simply are misdiagnosed because some doctors don’t want to go through the trouble of ordering extra tests.

I don’t know what category Martin fit in. All I know is that it shouldn’t have taken much to figure out that this child had sickle cell trait -- and what could happen if his oxygen supply was cut off by guards who put their hands over his mouth and fill his nose with ammonia.
Then again, I doubt if that would have mattered to the guards. From what I’ve read, they probably would have accused him of using his sickness as an excuse and abused him even more.
Nor would it have mattered to the jurors.

They wouldn’t have seen a sick child fighting for breath. They would have seen a black child fighting white authority.

And to them, protecting that authority is far more important than getting justice for a murdered black child who they believe defied it.