Florida boot camp staff cleared in teen's death

By Jim Loney

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida jury acquitted seven former guards and a nurse of manslaughter on Friday in the death of a 14-year-old boy whose beating by the guards at a juvenile boot camp was caught on videotape.

The death of Martin Lee Anderson, who was sent to the detention camp for joyriding in his grandmother's car, sparked widespread outrage when the tape was made public, leading to accusations of a cover-up against then Gov. Jeb Bush, protests at the state capitol and closure of Florida's boot camps.

Florida agreed this year to pay $5 million to Anderson's family.

Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Anderson's parents, called the not guilty verdict issued by a jury in Panama City, Florida, "a tough pill to swallow."

"You kill a dog, you go to jail. You kill a little black boy, nothing happens," he said, in an apparent reference to NFL quarterback Michael Vick, who pleaded guilty to federal dogfighting charges in August and faces up to five years in prison.

The former boot camp staff members had faced up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

Anderson collapsed during an exercise drill on January 5, 2006, a few hours after he arrived at the detention center for young offenders in the Florida Panhandle. He died at a hospital the next day.

A medical examiner initially ruled that Anderson died of natural causes -- internal bleeding from sickle cell trait, a previously undiagnosed blood disorder that occurs in one in 12 African-Americans and does not usually cause health problems.