Former boot camp guard: We tried to
help teen
December 30, 2006
By Rebecca Catalanello
 Martin
Lee Anderson, 14, died after being beaten by guards at the Bay
County Boot Camp on January 5. The boot camp is operated by the Bay
County Sheriff's Department and overseen by Florida's Department of
Juvenile Justice. A former juvenile boot camp guard charged in the
videotaped beating and death of a 14-year-old boy says he tried to
help the teen when he realized something was wrong.
"I feel terrible," said Charles
Helms Jr. in an online interview with ABC's 20/20, a version of
which aired Friday night. "It's a devastating thing. I can only
imagine what it would feel like to lose one of my children, one of
my sons."
Martin Lee Anderson died Jan. 6, a
day after seven guards - Helms among them - punched and kneed him
when he refused to complete a required running drill at a Panama
City boot camp.
An eighth person, a nurse, stood by
and watched. All eight are charged with aggravated manslaughter on a
child and are scheduled to go to trial next year.
"We were trying to see if the kid
was faking it, feigning illness," Helms told ABC reporter Jim Avila
in his first public interview since the incident.
Anderson was sent to the boot camp
after violating probation by taking his grandmother's car on a joy
ride.
Helms said that when Anderson
collapsed on a dirt track after a forced 11/2-mile run, guards
thought he might be faking to get out of the exercise, "which
happens often with a new kid coming into the program," he said.
"He said something to the effect
that 'I'm not going to do this' or 'I'll do this tomorrow,' " Helms
said in the televised interview.
Punching Anderson in the arms to
unclench his fists and kneeing him in the thighs was considered by
the guards to be standard law enforcement procedure, Avila said
during the news segment.
"What we did was not enough to kill
a child," Helms said. "Not enough to harm a child."
But in an Associated Press story
about the 20/20 interview, Helms is quoted more extensively than he
was on television, saying he rushed to try to help Anderson when he
realized something was wrong.
Helms said he saw a grain of sand
touch Anderson's eye and noticed that the boy didn't blink,
according to the AP. "That's an irritant in your eye, and he was not
trying to wipe it out of his eye ... I knew he was not faking it,
and I said, 'That's it. Call 911,' " Helms said.
"We did not disregard the fact that
he was in trouble as soon as it was recognized. We changed hats and
went to a rescue mode."
In the past, Helms' attorney,
Waylon Graham, has placed much of the blame for Martin Lee
Anderson's death on boot camp nurse Kristin Schmidt.
Graham said Schmidt told guards the
teen was faking his illness, even as they covered his mouth, forcing
him to breath ammonia, he said. The guards waited to call 911 at the
nurse's advice, he said.
Helms, 50, a father of three,
previously served in the Army, working as a drill sergeant. Helms
lost his guard job after the boot camp tape surfaced.
A Bay County medical examiner first
said the teen died from natural causes of complications from sickle
cell trait. But after a tremendous public outcry, the Hillsborough
County medical examiner conducted a second autopsy and ruled that
Anderson died from suffocation because his mouth was forced closed
as ammonia tablets were shoved into his nose.
Besides Helms and Schmidt, the
other defendants are former guards Henry Dickens, Charles Enfinger,
Patrick Garrett, Raymond Hauck, Henry McFadden Jr. and Joseph Walsh
II.
They could each get up to 30 years
in prison if convicted.
If it hadn't been for the video,
Helms told 20/20, he doesn't think he would be facing charges at
all.
|
