Boot Camp Nurse: It's Not Her Job to Interfere....shocking statements

[madfloridian]

I find it appalling that she would say it is not her job to step in when a kid is being beaten.

PANAMA CITY | A juvenile boot camp nurse charged with killing a 14-year-old boy testified Tuesday that her job did not routinely require her to interfere with the actions of the guards.

Kristin Schmidt said she was only to interfere with the guards, "If I saw something that would cause an injury."

Lady, what the heck is wrong with you. They were beating him. You were standing by and watching.

She says she steps in if injury is likely, and is used to kids faking illness.

Faking illness?? They were beating him!

Schmidt and seven guards from the now-closed Bay County Boot Camp are charged with killing 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson in a 30-minute altercation captured on a surveillance video of the camp's exercise yard. The video shows the guards hitting, kneeing and dragging Anderson's limp body around the exercise yard as Schmidt watches.

Ashley Benedik, Schmidt's lawyer, asked whether Schmidt was accustomed to youth pretending to be unable run laps and do other exercise.

Schmidt said that was common in her 11 years at the camp.

"Being a rag doll, cannot breathe, 'I have another kind of illness,' there was at least one on every intake day," she said.

Bottom line...the kid is dead while 7 guards beat him. And the nurse stood by because it was not her job to interfere.

Here is the video in case you missed it.

Silent tribute

[madfloridian]

1. St. Pete Times article about her.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/10/06/Columns/Will_nurse_be...

"During a lunch break in the boot camp trial this week, as people filtered out into the sun, Martin Lee Anderson's mother and her friends stopped to form a small prayer circle.

They held hands there on the steps, a deep-voiced reverend among them praying aloud as people passed by.

Then through the courthouse doors came nurse-turned-manslaughter-defendant Kristin Schmidt.

In that now-infamous video, she is the one in white lab coat and stethoscope, watching as the guards strike the boy, as he goes limp, as they hold his mouth and force him to breathe in ammonia.

When Schmidt saw the prayer circle, she drew back, then hurried toward the parking lot. She passed within inches of Anderson's mother, who did not see her, her eyes closed in prayer."

[NMMNG]

2. Un-freaking-real

All of those places should be shut down. They're nothing more than legalized child abuse.

[madfloridian]

11. Times UK covers it: "Torture, starvation and death: how American boot camps abuse boys"

I was shocked at some of this from the GAO report.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_amer...

"The Government Accountability Office, the US Congress investigative arm, identified 1,619 incidents of child abuse in 33 states in 2005. It selected ten deaths since 1990 for special investigation in boot camps and “wilderness programmes”.

Parents send their children to the privately run camps in the hope that their strict regimes and outdoor pursuits will instil discipline. But the findings suggest that instructors often go too far in trying to teach them good behaviour.

“Examples of abuse include youths being forced to eat their own vomit, denied adequate food, being forced to lie in urine or faeces, being kicked, beaten and thrown to the ground,” Gregory Kutz, a GAO investigator, told a congressional committee."

And there is much more at the article. Sickening.

[monktonman]

3. "If I saw something that would cause an injury."

So holding ones hand over his mouth
and forcing him to breath ammonia through his nose for five minutes
wouldnt cause injury?

Un-frickin believable.
Madfloridian, are you the only sane person living in florida?

[madfloridian]

4. Me and my hubby.

and we are not sure about us.

[knight_of_the_star]

6. Functionally sane counts

Its not like you're beating kids to death at youth camps.

[madfloridian]

10. That is true.

But I am not so sure about the "functional".

[QueenOfCalifornia]

13. Gerald and Trisha Posner

live in Florida... as does Randi Rhodes part time -- plus I have a few other friends who live there who are voting Democrats and share Outragedfloridian's rage. But then you guys also have Rush Limbaugh... that has to tilt the scale against you.

[madfloridian]

5. The beatings were "were strictly according to procedure."

Now I have heard it all.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2186987,00.html

These are not rogue officers who are trying to punish a kid," he said. "Nobody is going to say that those hammer strikes or knee strikes were unlawful, they were strictly according to procedure."

Inmates at the camp were labelled under a colour-coded dot system according to their backgrounds as juvenile offenders. Martin Lee had been given a red dot, the highest of five levels, because he had gang activity and violence according the file given to the camp by the department of juvenile justice.

Well, gee, kid, you have a red dot label...so it is ok to use a "legal" beating system on you.

[Cronus Protagonist]

7. She was a "Good German"

And appears to be using the same "defense" proffered by Nazis at Nuremberg.

[madfloridian]

8. Prosecutor played segments of the 30-minute video showing the guards repeatedly slamming Martin Lee

.."Anderson on the ground, dragging his limp body around the boot camp exercise yard and hitting him. "

Anderson died because the guards crossed a line, he said.

"They went way too far, further than they had ever gone before. They suffocated Martin Anderson," Harmon said.

And he pointed to omissions in incident reports compiled by the defendants in the hours after the incident.

"The cover up started immediately," Harmon said. "This fabrication, this cover up begins and it continues all the way until this week in front of you."

The defendants face as many as 30 years in prison if convicted of aggravated manslaughter of a child. Jurors could decide to acquit them of manslaughter, but convict them of lesser charges including child neglect or culpable negligence.

http://www.local10.com/news/14323068/detail.html

One of the guards was not in attendance, he was in the hospital because of stress.

[madfloridian]

9. Case in the jury's hands.

More shocking statements from the trial.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gKVEpEUAn-5PeOpsggoX...

"The defendants saw Anderson as one of hundreds of juvenile offenders who was simply refusing to comply with requirements when he collapsed on his first day in the camp and wouldn't continue exercising, defense attorneys said.

They say Anderson initially caught their clients' attention because he used profanity.

"There was nothing to show that this was anything but a healthy, foul-mouthed, out-of-control, young man who was malingering out on that field," Jonathan Dingus, defense attorney for guard Henry McFadden, told jurors."

He was a human being. I will not be surprised if this whole thing is somehow whitewashed because Martin Lee Anderson cursed.

[in_cog_ni_to]

12. These boot camps should be OUTLAWED!!!! I watched George Miller's Congressional hearing the other

day about this. THOUSANDS of kids have been either KILLED or physically ABUSED by the thugs that work at these camps. One of the witnesses said people who like to abuse kids gravitate to these camps because they ARE NOT REGULATED BY ANYONE! They commit murder and never have to pay for their crimes. It's ridiculous that this has been allowed to continue for as long as it has. It's outrageous.

[redqueen]

14. Agreed on all points.

It's a industry, though... you know how that goes. Once an industry starts making campaign contributions, it suddenly becomes unreasonable to expect legislators to regulate those industries.

[madfloridian]

15. Not guilty.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/content/news/breakingnews/...

Told you so.

[madfloridian]

16. Once last kick as a tribute to Martin Lee Anderson

Who was beaten and died. They were deemed not guilty.

What a sad commentary on our state.

[madfloridian]

17. All white jury....more about the trial.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/...