Torture, starvation and death: how American boot camps abuse boys

This is a story too incredible to believe going on in America. About a black teenage boy in a bootcamp, beaten and suffocated to death. Still more unbelievable, the perpetrators was aquitted in no time by an all white jury.

Much I will think and do think about America, but that basic equal justice for 'commen people' would be gone, was among the last things to think be gone.

Acquittals ignite protests in Florida's capital

Justice was denied when the defendants in the Martin Lee Anderson manslaughter trial were acquitted in Panama City by a jury that needed only 90 minutes to decide, black lawmakers said Friday.

The acquittals ignited street protests in the capital that disrupted rush hour traffic.

By mid-afternoon, about 200 people _ many from the historically black Florida A&M University nearby _ were protesting the acquittals outside the Capitol, about 120 miles from Panama City.

The group then moved to a busy downtown intersection and sat down in the street, disrupting traffic.

'No justice. No peace!' they chanted.

[---] 'It's almost if they've declared open season on black boys in Florida,' state Sen. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, said.

'Ninety minutes of deliberation for a child's life, a child who we saw beaten to death on videotape over and over again?' asked Wilson. 'That's un-American.

That is racist, discriminatory, bigotry.'

I know what a 'bootcamp' is, but have always associated it with military training, marines, tough stuff like that. Have never given it a second thought, that it's a diciplinary tool in upbringing of obnoxious juveniles as well. And I have never known it to be an industry -and an ideology widely held- like it seems, not before I read about Martin Lee Anderson in Danish media, and then googled for the sources of the story.

Not that the phenomenon doesn't excist as a diciplinary tool in Europe too, but I've never heard of fatalities to this extent.

A senate hearing has been up lately too on the bootcamps. Boy, what they get away with.

Torture, starvation and death: how American boot camps abuse boys

At the American Buffalo Soldiers boot camp in Arizona, where Anthony Haynes, 14, died in 2001, children were fed an apple for breakfast, a carrot for lunch and a bowl of beans for dinner, the GAO report said. Anthony became dehydrated in a 45C (113F) temperature and vomited soil that he had eaten because of his hunger, according to witnesses. The programme closed and Charles Long, its director, was sentenced in 2005 to six years in prison for manslaughter. The report said that five of the ten programmes where teenagers died are still operating, sometimes under different names. Between 10,000 and 20,000 American children attend the camps every year. Some charge as much as $450 (£225) a day.

Mr Kutz said that the programmes marketed appealing outdoor experiences to “desperate parents”, who are often trying to keep their children out of jail or from getting into deeper trouble.

This should have been in breaking news, I haven't seen if has been. In fact I find it peculiar, no debate or news about this in ATS (somebody correct me if I'm wrong).

I searched the boys name and a couple of stories came up from when the charges were pressed in late 2006.
Former Guards and Nurse Charged In Death Of Boy at Juvenile Boot Camp

Somehow I find it incredible nobody replies to this thread, not to mention it is hardly viewed.

I got to presume correctional practicies like these are okay by American standards.

To me they reminds me too much of fascism. To not respond to race riots because of an unjust verdict passed down by a jury bought off by their racial supremacy, I can understand that nobody finds that worthwhile..

But the METHODE, I find it hard nobody has comments on it.

The practice of power --always best when it's to kill-- abused to replace basic satisfaction.

Ya know, the power over life and death, gives thrills fully comparable of those of sexual satisfaction, and you know that's the core root of Fascism, the manipulation of the deep disatisfaction of not being able to perform.

At the stop of WW1 ten million German husbands and sweetharts came back from the war, back home from the trenchies, to their wives and fiancees, if not shellshocked, then never to become what they once were. In regards of functioning male speciments of the human race.

Piece of cake to get the masses behind any demon then.


* ..I can get no satisfaction ...and I try ..I try ...but I can get no.......

The Florida boy's death was on the news everyday for a good while way back when it happened. It was a sickening video, and even the doctors who examined the boy argued over the actual cause of his death. I'm not a medical doctor, and I wasn't there, so I don't know if it really was some sickle-cell complication (as was claimed by some) or not in that particular case.

I had no idea parents actually pay to send their kids to some places like that. The only ones I knew existed were prison/jail-diversion programs that are court-ordered and in lieu of some other kind of detention.

For years in the U.S. kids that got into trouble were sent to "military schools" where they were given highly structured schedules and a good dose of discipline. In many cases, the schools do positive things for young people who need a little discipline to correct bad behavior.

I would imagine many of these schools were reasonable in the type and level of discipline they gave students. I would also imagine that a few schools act unreasonably. I would also imagine that schools that are for the most part good may have isolated incidents of unreasonable behavior.

It is perhaps not insignificant that after the Tacoma mall shooter, Dominick Sergio Maldonado, 20, took hostages on 11-20-05, he demanded to speak to three counselors that he claimed had abused him at a 'boot camp' he had attended at some previous time.