NightSwimmer
Senator
...for the Florida tourist industry.
Bodies can be exhumed from Fla. Reform school
By GARY FINEOUT
Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Saying it was time to provide answers from a painful period in the state's past, Florida's top officials voted Tuesday to let researchers dig up and try to identify remains buried at a closed reform school for boys.
Former students have accused employees and guards at The Dozier School for Boys of physical and sexual abuse, so severe in some cases it may have led to death. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated, but in 2009 the agency concluded it was unable to substantiate or dispute the claims.
Researchers at the University of South Florida hope to identify boys in unmarked graves, and perhaps return them to family members for a proper burial.
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The school opened in 1900 and was shut down in 2011 for budgetary reasons.
Sid Riley, the managing editor of the weekly Jackson County Times, wrote to state officials in July, calling the plans a "terrible project."
"We have an active industrial development program and a tourist development program here. If they proceed with this terrible project, our community will be exposed to over a year of negative publicity," Riley wrote.
Riley said the groups "promoting this effort" would ultimately seek compensation and the "politicians are playing up to the minority voters."
Jackson County Commissioner Jeremy Branch said the project would continue to blemish the county and Marianna, where the school is located. He said he was confused as to what the exhumation of the bodies would discover.
"Are we trying to determine if bad things happened 100 years ago in America?" Branch said. "We know bad things happened in America."
Bodies can be exhumed from Fla. Reform school
By GARY FINEOUT
Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Saying it was time to provide answers from a painful period in the state's past, Florida's top officials voted Tuesday to let researchers dig up and try to identify remains buried at a closed reform school for boys.
Former students have accused employees and guards at The Dozier School for Boys of physical and sexual abuse, so severe in some cases it may have led to death. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated, but in 2009 the agency concluded it was unable to substantiate or dispute the claims.
Researchers at the University of South Florida hope to identify boys in unmarked graves, and perhaps return them to family members for a proper burial.
-----
The school opened in 1900 and was shut down in 2011 for budgetary reasons.
Sid Riley, the managing editor of the weekly Jackson County Times, wrote to state officials in July, calling the plans a "terrible project."
"We have an active industrial development program and a tourist development program here. If they proceed with this terrible project, our community will be exposed to over a year of negative publicity," Riley wrote.
Riley said the groups "promoting this effort" would ultimately seek compensation and the "politicians are playing up to the minority voters."
Jackson County Commissioner Jeremy Branch said the project would continue to blemish the county and Marianna, where the school is located. He said he was confused as to what the exhumation of the bodies would discover.
"Are we trying to determine if bad things happened 100 years ago in America?" Branch said. "We know bad things happened in America."
