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Lawmakers to continue push for medical examiner's removal in boot camp death case

By Michael C. Bender

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, March 25, 2006

TALLAHASSEE — A group of black and other lawmakers called Friday for the removal of a Bay County medical examiner who refuses to budge from his decision that a Panama City eighth-grader, who was punched and kneed by state boot camp guards, died from complications of sickle-cell trait.

"We're 40 years since the death of Dr. Martin King Luther Jr. and all is not well," said Sen. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami. "We're still fighting a civil rights movement."

The comments were made at the first of what black lawmakers have vowed will be weekly press conferences until Dr. Charles Siebert and those involved in the death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson are removed.

The lawmakers repeated their call for investigations of the guards involved in the beating, a nurse at the boot camp and the Bay County sheriff, and they said there is a "coverup" to protect law enforcement officers.

"I think that ultimately we're going to find out who asked Dr. Siebert to come up with these conclusions," said Rep. Gus Barreiro, a Miami Republican who heads the House Criminal Justice Appropriations Committee.

"At best it's denial, at worst it's corrupt."

Also Friday, Barreiro's committee approved a $10.5 million budget request for other four state boot camps, including $2.1 million for the Martin County program. The proposal renames the camps "star programs" and requires all camps be retooled to mirror the Martin program, which an audit shows is the second-most effective of all programs for boys in the Department of Juvenile Justice.

Siebert ruled that Anderson died in January from sickle-cell anemia trait, which is carried by nearly 50 percent of blacks. Anderson's body was then exhumed at the request of his parents and a second autopsy was conducted by the Hillsborough County medical examiner.

A private medical examiner, Dr. Michael Baden, watched the second autopsy on behalf of the family and said the teen died as a result of the beatings. The Hillsborough medical examiner has said it could take a month before the results of his autopsy are ready.

A spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush, who lawmakers want to fire Siebert, said the governor is waiting for the Hillsborough examiner's report.

Noting that Dr. King and Anderson share the same birthday — Jan. 15 — Wilson said Anderson "will go down in the history of the civil rights movement.

"We know that Martin did not die of sickle cell trait," she said.


 
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