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Very rarely do we have stories that are still interesting and “new” after a few days, but the story of Martin Anderson, the boy who died after his first day at the Bay County boot camp, is still making headlines almost two years later.

The saga culminates with the trial of the seven former guards and the nurse who were on the field when Anderson collapsed during intake exercises. A surveillance tape shows guards trying to make the teen resume his run. He later becomes unresponsive and dies several hours later. A first autopsy says Anderson died from complications of sickle cell trait, while another autopsy concluded Anderson died from suffocation from the guards holding ammonia capsules to his nose while they covered his mouth.

The former boot camp employees are facing up to thirty years in prison, if the jury finds them culpably negligent in Anderson’s death. The defense maintains the guards were only doing their jobs and had no way of forseeing Anderson’s death.

This is a story that’s put Panama City in the spotlight. It’s sparked protests and strong feelings from many people. It’s been a challenging story for all of us, too, because we’ve had to do our best to remain as unbiased in our reporting as possible. I know many people have negative opinions of the media, the attention, and the way we report stories. As a reporter, I personally do my utmost to make sure I present all sides of a story, which also means making sure I don’t inject my opinion into what I report.

I’m a journalist. I’m not paid to give my opinion. Commentators like Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are paid to give their opinions on the airwaves.

The trial has become a saga in and of itself. My assignment editor, Heather Kretzer, and I have been sitting in the courtroom listening as the entire thing unfolds. Heather has done a wonderful job keeping up with the testimony in her courtroom blog, while I take pages and pages of notes, trying to figure out how best to encapsulate hours worth of testimony into three or four minutes worth for our 5:00, 6:00, and 10:00 newscasts.

That’s a picture of me preparing to do a live report in front of the Juvenile Justice Courthouse for one of the newscasts.

I’ve been coming to work at about 7:00 am each day and leaving between 8:30 and 10:00pm each night. It’s a grueling schedule, and here I am, back at work again for the weekend news. And just in case you’re wondering, I don’t get paid for working extra hours. Luckily, I have tomorrow off, but I’ll be back to the grueling schedule all next week until we get a verdict.

Check out our special Boot Camp Trial website for all the latest.

The attention around the case has been amazing. We’ve been getting all sorts of responses from all of you on our comments section. We’ve been reporting live alongside Court TV. We even had a station from Tampa here earlier in the week.

It’s about to get interesting over the next few days, so I hope all of you will stay tuned for the results.

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Posted on Oct 06, 2007 - 03:41 PM by Tuquyen Mach

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About Me

I was born and raised in the hills of northeast Georgia, in a little town called Gainesville near the sparkling waters of Lake Lanier. My parents are Vietnamese immigrants who came to the U.S. more than 20 years ago. The sacrifices they've made for me to have a better life have made them my inspiration. I feel extremely honored that you've chosen to put your trust in me. I'm happy to be here in Panama City, and I look forward to getting to know you.

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