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Guard charged with manslaughter of juvenile takes stand

By MELISSA NELSON
Associated Press Writer

PANAMA CITY, Fla. — A guard charged with killing a 14-year-old boy at a juvenile boot camp told jurors Monday that a video showing himself and other guards hitting, kneeing and dragging the boy depicts training de-signed to protect both the guards and the child.

Guard Charles Helms was in charge of the Bay County Boot Camp exercise yard Jan. 5, 2006, the day Martin Lee Anderson entered the camp. Anderson died early the next morning at a Pensacola hospital.

Helms and six other guards are charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child. Nurse Kristin Schmidt, who is seen throughout the 30-minute video watching the altercation, also is charged in Anderson’s death.

Helms, a former Army drill instructor, said the camp was intended to have a paramilitary tone and the youth were expected to answer all questions with “sir, yes sir.”

He said the youth were labeled under a color-coded dot system according to their backgrounds as juvenile offend-ers.

Anderson was given a red dot, the highest of five levels, because he had gang activity and violence in the file given to the camp from the Department of Juvenile Justice, Helms said.

When Anderson collapsed, complained of shortness of breath and refused to continue a mandatory run, numerous guards approached him because that was the camp’s policy, Helms said.

Helms later demonstrated for jurors the hammer strike blows and knee strike techniques the guards used to gain compliance from the youth. He said the blows were a method of gaining control of Anderson without seriously hurt-ing him.

Ammonia capsules were also used to get the attention of the youth, he said. Helms said the capsules were not used in a punitive way, but rather to determine if a youth was pretending to pass out.

“You have to hold it there for 30 or 40 seconds because some of these kids could hold their breath for awhile, but then you’d feel them twisting and turning,” he said.

Prosecutors say the guards suffocated Anderson by covering his mouth and forcing him to inhale ammonia fumes.

Defense attorneys say Anderson’s death was unavoidable because he had undiagnosed sickle cell trait, a genetic blood disorder. The usually benign disorder can cause blood cells to shrivel into a sickle shape and limit their ability to carry oxygen under physical stress.

Earlier Monday, prosecutors rested their case after testimony from Dr. Shairi Turner, a pediatrician and the chief medical director for Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice.

She testified that Schmidt, who stood by during the altercation, did not tell her supervisors that the teen was struck and forced to inhale ammonia.

Walter Smith, attorney guard Charles Enfinger, opened the defense case by telling jurors the videotaped alterca-tion evokes an emotional reaction in people who don’t understand the “paramilitary” environment that was required at the now-closed camp.

“It makes you want to reach into the screen and say, ‘Why isn’t someone calling 911?”‘ he said in beginning the de-fense’s case.

Smith said the incident was “a day at the office” for the guards, who saw Anderson not as a 14-year-old child, but as “a 6-foot, 168-pound, adult felon.” He had been sent to the camp for a probation violation after trespassing at a school and stealing his grandmother’s car from a church parking lot.

“These are not rogue officers who are trying to punish a kid,” he said. “Nobody is going to say that those hammer strikes or knee strikes were unlawful, they were strictly according to procedure.”

Michael Thompson, former commander of the boot camp and a deputy with Bay County Sheriff’s Office, detailed the camp’s “matrix for passive resistance,” which guards followed when a youth did not obey an order.

He said the matrix, which includes securing the youth against a fence and applying pressure with the thumb to the back of the head behind the ear, was used when a youth refused to unclench his fist — something the guards said Anderson did during throughout their encounter.

“If the fists stay clenched, he is choosing to disobey an order,” he said.

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Scott Harmon, Thompson said guards were trained to use the least amount of force necessary to accomplish their objective under the matrix.

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