I don’t fucking care, because NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE ANALYZED FROM A LEGAL STANDPOINT.
You’re joking, right?
We’re not talking about summer camps where kids swim and play in the forest. We’re talking about so-called “boot camps” where children are sent to be intimidated and abused by wannabe drill instructors.
And gosh, the line is pretty easy to draw; it is illegal to assault someone. How tough is that? Please refer to Florida Law, Crimes, sec. 784.011 and 784.03.
Ummm it does if you’re talking about convicting several men on the basis of a video tape that supposedly shows them beating a kid to death.
I’ve watched it about four times all the way through now. I still can’t see what the hell is going on but if there’s a beating in there it sure isn’t as brutal as everyone seems to be saying. Not saying that what I could see was acceptable just not as outrageous as everyone seems to be saying here.
Yeah, a legal standpoint is really inappropriate to analyze a comment like “…but the nurse and the officers involved have yet to be arrested.” A legal standpoint is completely useless when evaluating “I truly hope the people in the video and those in charge here are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
:rolleyes:
BWAHAHAHA!
What a moron.
Maybe. For that matter, the moment you restrain someone against his will, that’s kidnapping, or unlawful detention, the moment you place your hands on them without consent, that’s assault.
However, a parent, or those who stand in loco parentis, have a common-law privilege to commit acts that would be crimes if committed by strangers against an adult. I can swat my kid on the bottom without being guilty of battery; I can confine him in his room with no supper without being guilty of unlawful detention or kidnapping.
The strikes on the arm shown in the video do not, to me, appear to be particularly brutal. They were not punches - they were slaps. Assuming the parents had given permission for their child to be treated like that, it’s far from clear to me that the action was even illegal.
And even if it was, it amounts to no more than misdemeanor assault. Granted, that is a crime… it’s not a particularly serious one.
Again, I would like to add that the actual video is 40 minutes long. It amounts to about 40 minutes of beating. To the point that the second examiner said he was probably brain dead at that point.
Also, this is not your run-of the-mill camp like many others have pointed out. These children are pressure pointed excessively, beaten, revived by ammonia capsules, beaten again, and treated like animals.
from Bricker’s post, one gets the assumption that it was about 7 minutes long - hey, Bricker - you noted several ‘glips’ where you’re not sure if there was editing. I would assume that you would hesitate to make any conclusions based on the 7 minutes you viewed if you knew for certain that the original tape was 40 minutes long, w/o some idea of who edited what out, right?
Well is there any way to view the whole video? If it’s so horrible how come the 8 mins we can view doesn’t seem to be all that outrageous? Don’t take me wrong I’m not saying there wasn’t a brutal beating I’m just not seeing any real proof at this point that this isn’t anything more then a knee jerk situation.
If the standard of these camps are to beat children unconscious revive them only to beat them again it seems terribly unwise for them to allow videotaping to take place. Was this video somehow taken without the people that run this camp’s knowledge?
Out of curiosity what is ‘excessive pressure pointed’? Is there a level that you’d find acceptable? Not being snide I just found that phrase kinda odd. Either it’s a legit tactic to get compliance or it’s not.
As an aside I understand these camps are the alterative to juvenile hall. Do you feel the camps are inherently worse then that? Or do you just feel this camp turned to torture somewhere along the way?
Fair enough, Bricker. I think on the evidence of that tape alone I’d have a hard time convicting, too, because there’s definite doubt as to what occurred. The contents of the tape do suggest that something untoward occurred, though, and while we can’t come out and say there’s a clear case from a legal view I think it’s pretty safe to say that someone or a group are to blame, and that the kid was in the care of the camp at the time, leaving them with obligation to prevent harm coming to him. If I understand the law correctly (and I admit I’m far from an expert) the parents could at the very least bring a civil suit against the camp for failing in their duties to protect him.
Of course.
However, the video I viewed was at the link offered in the OP. The page in question is certainly sympathetic to the cause of the boy’s death. I would assume, then, that they woud choose to post a version of the video that was most inculpatory with respect to the guards. This video, which ran eight minutes and ten seconds, was not, as I detailed above.
But you’re correct. I mentioned the edit “jumps” precisely for that purpose. I have no way of knowing what was removed; for all I know, it shows a platoon of guards beating the crap out of the kid. But I don’t know that, and for the Op and others in this thread to demand “full prosecution” or the arrest of the nurse and officers BASED ON THE TAPE I SAW is ludicrous.
If there is a link to the full tape, I’d certainly like to see it. It may well settle the issue we’re discussing definitively.
Well, even there I’m not so sure.
Certainly you’re right – the parents could bring such a suit. But if the only evidence were the tape I saw, they would not have enough evidence to win even a civil suit.
The medical examiner’s report ruled the death a result of complications from a blood disorder. There was a second autopsy, which apparently will find that that the death was the result of suffocation, but it’s findings are not yet released. At best, then, you have dueling experts: the official medical examiner, a supposedly neutral party, says the death was not suspicious; an expert hired by the family disputes this. This is not exactly a slam-dunk for a plaintiff’s case.
Thanks for clearing that up, Bricker. One question, though;
What usually happens in cases like these, where there’s two experts disagreeing? Are more experts sought out, until there’s a more agreed-upon answer?
Well, the prosecution (or plaintiff) puts up their expert and the defense tries to impeach the testimony, and the defense puts up their expert and the prosecutor tries to impeach the testimony, and the jury (or the judge) decides what (if any) testimony is credible. The jury decides how much weight to give testimony.
Apparently, Bricker, the ‘kicking and punching’ part of the video. Now, maybe you can’t see it, but the young man apparently died from internal bleeding.
http://www.nospank.net/n-p64r.htm
If the article is accurate, then he was kneed and punched repeatedly.
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/03/14/ap2594644.html
According to the expert opinion of Dr. Baden, pathologist, it is probable he died as a result of damage inflicted by the actions shown by the men in the videotape.
What we see as a .wmv is not the actual videotape, but a byte-downsampled copy. It’s blurry, and I’m not an expert, but I think I see physical violence, yes.
If the final results suggest that Mr. Anderson did die in that manner, then… well, I’d call that murder. Wouldn’t you, Bricker?
Right. Your post focused entirely on those two comments (there are admittedly others). The thread is about a kid who died under horrible circumstances. That’s what the thread is ultimately about–not whether what happened is technically illegal.
One could argue that it’s self-evident that what happened is horrible and wrong regardless of whether it was legal, and that it’s unreasonable to expect you to mention the obvious before delving into your typical legal nit-picking. But in your case I wouldn’t buy that, because frankly I’m not sure if you’d recognize it as wrong. I think you sometimes use your legal knowledge as a shield to hide less defensible (but more interesting) positions.
Differed greatly? So if it was an asthma attack rather than complications from sickle cell anemia are we still asking for the death penalty. I watched the video presented, I didn’t see anything abusive exept for one bit at time point 1:21 where it looks like the officer might have kneed him.
Refusing to walk is a pretty common method of passive resistance to arrest. I would imagine that the nurse is around probably to assist with people who want to claim physical inability to perform PT or other activities due to medical problems, probably also a common complaint/excuse. If the kid had relevant medical problems that would make his sentencing incompatible with boot camps the fault lies with whomever allowed him to be placed here.
For one, I hope the prosecution has more evidence than just a tape, like the eyewitness alluded to in the linked website and the autopsy conducted after the exhumation.
I tend to agree with you on the tape alone, though. It’s just hard to tell what’s going on. However, if the tape is played for an eyewitness who can testify to the scene (tell me what I am looking at) and if I see an autopsy report showing this kid died of blunt force trauma, well then, that changes things.
Consider this: If you were in a field 300 yards from me and I was just barely able to see well enough to see you extend your arm in the direction of what looked like a tree directly in front of you and then I heard a loud pop and saw what looked like smoke rise from the end of your arm and then, 2 days later, someone who had been next to you would tell me that what I saw was you shooting a .22 pistol at the tree and then someone else would show me a picture of what he said was the same tree and in that picture I could see a that there is now a bullet hole in the tree, and that person would tell me it was a 2 day old .22 bullet hole – well my first sight of you 300 yards away doesn’t tell me much, but in conjunction with the rest of that stuff, I’m pretty sure I know what happened.
And this business about shutting down all camps is really stupid. LHOD has already pretty much covered this, but jeez . . . do you folks really expect to be taken seriously?
Finally, as part of the earlier hijack – it was mentioned that Paris Island was full of volunteers and that’s not how it was in the '60’s – but it’s my understanding that USMC has always been volunteer.
Credibility is an issue of fact for the fact-finder (the jury) to resolve. Certainly if one side can bring in ANOTHER expert that will shore up his position, that may help things; the judge has the discretion to limit testimony that is wholly cumulative of previous testimony, however.
When the OP itself, and other comments (as you acknowledge yourself, more than just the two I quoted) demand arrests or legal reprisals, it’s not crazy of me to respond to them. You may say, “The thread is about a horrible death, not techincal legal points,” but in fact the thread IS about legal points. Nor are these particularly hypertechnical legal points. We’re not talking about the exclusion of evidence for faliure to be specific enough in an affadavit support a warrant. We’re talking about the absence of evidence of a beating on a video that was offered to us as evidence of a beating. That’s pretty damning, and PRECISELY in line with what this thread is “about.”
You’re exactly right: right now, with the evidence in front of me, I do NOT see this as horrible and wrong. If the kid died of complications from a genetic blood disorder, then blaming the camp for his death is absurd. Nothing I saw on that tape strikes me as over-the-top punishment for a teenager who stole a car.
Now, if I could see actual beating, I would change my opinion in a hurry. But I don’t.
So, if the evidence supports the instructors beating the kid to death, then you support it. …
Man, Bricker, you are just so… much a lawyer sometimes.
I would like to put forth for consideration that we have an issue with these ‘boot camps’ that are generally A: outside US borders, as their actions might be illegal inside, B: generally containing ill-trained instructors, and C: apparently, not especially licensed or accredited.
These ‘boot camps’ seem to be different in nature from ‘sleepaway camps.’