November 10, 2001

LETTER FROM A MOTHER OF A PRISONER

Dear Kay Lee,

My name is Anna McGurk, and I am the mother of a Florida prisoner.  I live and raised my sons in California.  They left here to join family members in Florida several years ago.  My son, Micah Talley, was arrested and convicted of attempted murder and aggravated assault during a street fight there in Florida, eight years ago, when he was seventeen years old.  He spent the past four years at Hardee C.I. He has now been transferred (not in C.M. confinement) to Santa Rosa C.I. in Milton.

I pulled the information about Santa Rosa off your web site immediately.  I didn’t tell my son about the reported incidents of abuse I found there, because I didn’t want him to be under more stress about the situation.  Since he has been there, however, he has carefully reported similar abuses to me.  He has mentioned two cases of false DR reports on other inmates, and most recently, an incident where a prisoner in a nearby cell was physically assaulted.  In the DR confinement facility where my son is located, a prisoner was making noise, so guards went into his cell, handcuffed him (he did not resist), turned his face to the wall, and smashed his head against it.  This split his eyebrow, which required a butterfly bandage. 

This may seem minor compared to smashing a flashlight on a prisoner’s skull, or spraying pepper spray on sleeping prisoners, but I am anxious about my son’s safety there.  What is the most effective thing I can do, and who do I contact?  I contacted the Inspector General’s office myself over an incident of harassment & life threats to my son by guards at Hardee C.I., and it wouldn’t surprise me that the transfer to a worse facility, Santa Rosa, was a result of that.  When Micah asked his classification officer at Hardee if she could tell him where he was being transferred to, she laughed at him.

I am physically and financially powerless to confront officials in Florida, but I can write and make phone calls.  I am concerned for the treatment of all prisoners, but my biggest concern is that my son survive the next eight years required to fulfill his prison term. 

I also want to tell you, that I am a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and at our Friday night prayer meeting at Calvary Church here in Big Bear Lake, CA, we prayed for your ministry and mission field to the prisoners in the state of Florida.  We prayed that God would use you, if you are his chosen instrument to do so, to bring the Gospel to the lost in the prisons there.  My son, Micah, is not saved, and that is my utmost prayer, please add him to the many, I’m sure, you are praying for. 

I thank the Lord for your web site, and pray for his provision for all your needs to see it continue and grow, to effect the changes for our prisoners for their safety and dignity.  God bless you continually,

Anna McGurk