As Obama Presidency Winds Down, Mothers in Federal Prison Hope for Compassion
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"I remember thinking, 'I'm just a little kid. I'm going to be 25 when she gets out.' That's when it hit me -- she's not going to be there."
The White House announced on May 5 that President Obama granted clemency to 58 people in federal prisons, bringing the total number of clemencies granted under his adminsitration to 306. But thousands in federal prisons are still fervently hoping for presidential compassion. For many, including hundreds of mothers, executive clemency is their only chance to rejoin their families earlier. Mackese Walker Speight and Melissa Trigg are two mothers who have been separated from their families for the past 10 years. Both hope that, before leaving office, Obama will allow them to reunite with their children, parents and other family members earlier.
On August 1, 2006, when 28-year-old Mackese Walker Speight picked her 5- and 7-year-old daughters up from day care, she had no idea that it would be the last time she would ever do so.
That evening, police officers and federal agents showed up at the home she shared with her parents. "[They] came to my room and slung me to the floor with a gun and red dot aimed at me," Speight stated in an email to Truthout. Her daughters watched federal marshals handcuff their mother and march her out the door.
Five nights earlier, Speight had picked up her 18-year-old cousin Keundre Johnson. "Anytime any of my cousins asked me to take them anywhere or do something for them, I was there for them," she explained.
That evening, the cousins drove to a Subway store. She thought they were going to get food and remained in the car while Johnson entered the store. But that wasn't Johnson's intention at all. According to court documents, Johnson brandished a firearm and ordered everyone to stay still before demanding money from the cashier. He grabbed the cash drawer and left the store.
"He came back to my car with the till in his hand and sat down in my car and put it in his lap," Speight recalled. She said that she was initially scared, but when she discovered that Johnson's firearm was a BB gun, she calmed down. They continued driving around and, when they became hungry, pulled into a Ramada Inn where Speight ordered pizza, giving a fake name and room number. When the delivery person arrived at the hotel, Johnson once again brandished his BB gun. He took the man's money, ordered him into the passenger seat of his own car, then drove to a nearby parking lot where he forced the man onto the ground and threatened to "put a 40 in his ass."
"I did nothing to stop it because I didn't think I could," Speight said.
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