Tallahassee Protest March Led By NAACP

Can Tran October 23, 2007

The not-guilty verdict given to seven juvenile boot camp guards after the death of fourteen year old Martin Lee Anderson came as a shock and an outrage to many let alone Anderson’s family. It looks as if hardly anybody is satisfied with the not-guilty verdict handed down in a court just recently. The NAACP has taken a lot of action in response to the verdict.

About seven-hundred people have marched throughout Tallahassee, the capital of Florida. They are demanding the authorities to investigate what they allege are violations of civil rights by the staffers of the juvenile boot camp along with the former top law enforcement official of Florida. Currently, the United States Justice Department is reviewing the unsuccessful prosecution by the state of Florida.

The protesters state that the verdict was racially motivated. This protest landed for about an hour and a half. It is two-weeks after the jury in Panama City which was all-white had acquitted the seven guards and the one nurse of manslaughter charges in the death of Martin Lee Anderson.

There was already a video present that showed the guards hitting Anderson in his limp form while the nurse watched. Martin Lee Anderson had died the next day on January 6, 2006.

The protesters were praised by Tallahassee’s mayor, John Marks. He commended them for keeping up the pressure.