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College students in Florida protest killing at boot camp of African-American teenager |
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MIAMI—More than 2,000 students marched to the state capitol in Tallahassee April 21 to demand justice for Martin Lee Anderson, a 14-year-old Black youth beaten to death by guards at a boot camp where he had been sent for a probation violation. The January 6 assault by the guards was captured on video.
Many marchers likened the case to that of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old victim of a racist lynching in Mississippi in 1955. The students—from Florida A&M University, Florida State University, and Tallahassee Community College—are demanding the arrest of the guards who beat Anderson. Guy Tunnell, head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, who had tried to prevent the video of the beating from being released, resigned on April 20 after it was revealed he had made jokes comparing Sen. Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson, who were scheduled to speak at the rally, with Osama bin Laden and Jesse James. —MAGGIE TROWE Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home |