TALLAHASSEE — Under mounting pressure, Gov. Jeb Bush held a closed-door meeting Friday with civil-rights leaders Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton while 2,000 protesters on the Capitol steps demanded justice in the death of a black teenager beaten by guards at a Panhandle boot camp.
Bush also acknowledged that the abrupt resignation of Florida Department of Law Enforcement head Guy Tunnell was linked to comments Tunnell made about Jackson and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
Tunnell, a one-time Orange County deputy sheriff, dubbed Jackson “Jesse James” and called Obama “Osama bin Laden” during a top-level meeting earlier this week. At the time, Jackson and Obama were invited to come to Friday’s Capitol rally.
Bush said that when they met Thursday evening at the Governor’s Mansion, Tunnell offered to resign.
“His departure, I think, was the right thing to do,” Bush said.
Tunnell issued a statement that said “my attempt at humor was ill-conceived, ill-timed, and inappropriate, and was not intended to be disrespectful to any individual or group.”
But Tunnell’s comments enflamed an already explosive situation for the Republican governor, who is drawing criticism for the state’s treatment of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson and the investigation into his Jan. 6 death at a Panama City boot camp.
Led by Jackson and Sharpton, protesters mostly from Florida State University and Florida A&M; University converged Friday on the Capitol, chanting, “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
The demonstration came after an overnight sit-in earlier this week by about 30 students outside the Governor’s Office.
Friday’s rally included a handful of Democratic state lawmakers and the parents of the dead youth.
‘We want prosecution’
Sharpton and Jackson held hands with the boy’s parents, Gina Jones and Robert Anderson, as they approached the Capitol. Jones cried when she saw placards bearing the photo of her son in his funeral casket.
The teenager died a day after guards were videotaped kicking, kneeing and dragging him at the boot camp, which was run by the Bay County Sheriff’s Office under a state contract.
The camp has since closed, but no charges have been brought in the death.
“It is good that one guy resigned,” Sharpton told the crowd. “But we don’t want resignations. We want arrests. We want prosecution.”
When asked about Tunnell’s comments, Jackson said, “that kind of ugly name-calling is offensive. But it doesn’t bother me.”
He added, however, that it casts another shadow over a case in which the state is accused of foot-dragging in its investigation.
“If these men can engage in this kind of name-calling, they’ll also act in ways that are ugly and unacceptable,” Jackson said.
Tunnell’s office already had been removed from the probe after he sent friendly e-mails to Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen criticizing those who complained about the boot camp.
The e-mails prompted a special prosecutor appointed by Bush, Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober, to take FDLE off the case.
Tunnell had been Bay County sheriff and had started the boot camp before being picked by Bush to head FDLE in 2003.
An early supporter of Bush in his bid for governor, Tunnell had worked for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office from 1973 to 1978, after attending local schools and earning two degrees from Rollins College.
Previous controversy
Tunnell also was at the center of controversy in 2004 when members of Congress questioned whether FDLE committed civil-rights violations in questioning black Orlando voters in a probe of the previous year’s mayoral race.
In disclosing Tunnell’s departure to other high-ranking state leaders Thursday night, Bush’s office said only that it was linked to the e-mails he sent McKeithen.
But Friday, Bush said a combination of factors had compromised Tunnell’s ability to serve.
“I think it probably was a cumulative thing, to be honest with you,” Bush said. “The e-mail question as it related to this matter of the young child was inappropriate. And he recognized that. And it put the agency in a difficult situation.
“This joke, I don’t know if it had any impact or not. It was inappropriate as well. I think he realized that it would be difficult to lead the agency and to deal with these perception questions.”
Bush met with Sharpton and Jackson for about 15 minutes Friday. The governor had initially declined a meeting, but a governor’s staffer called the two men as they were getting in a car to leave the Capitol.
Sharpton described the exchange inside Bush’s office as “a frank and candid meeting. It was not hostile. But I think we expressed to him the outrage a lot of people have not only here at the demonstration but around the country.”
The three men also held hands and prayed together.
“We just prayed for justice,” Sharpton said.
The Governor’s Office did not comment on the meeting.
Bush met Thursday with the dead youth’s parents, who had criticized the governor and state officials for what they called a coverup of the events leading to their son’s death.
But after meeting with Bush, the boy’s mother, Gina Jones, said, “I think he’s getting on the right path now. He knows how I feel.”
Many at Friday’s rally also expressed anger at a medical examiner’s finding that the boy’s death was caused by complications from sickle cell trait, a usually benign blood disorder.
His family — and even Bush — has suggested that the altercation with guards led to his sudden death, which occurred only hours after he entered the boot camp. The results of a second autopsy are pending.
“The best way to clear up all of these swirling controversies around the death of this young man is to allow the state attorney to do his job, finish the investigation, release the autopsy and then take action based on that,” Bush said. “And that’s what I’m prepared to do.”
