A Fairhope man has already paid the price for the safety of his family. In 2021, Nathaniel Spurgeon's wife and mother-in-law were kidnapped for ransom. Now, he is opening up about his experience in hopes of preventing innocent children from having to pay the price for the mistakes of adults.
Spurgeon said the matter isn't political for him – it's personal.
He stood with his son, clinging to his side at Tuesday's Fairhope City Council meeting. As he began to tell his story, he forgot about his prepared speech and spoke from the heart.
"I am probably the only person in this room who has ever had to pay a ransom," he said.
The family moved to Fairhope in 2021 after years of living the military life. Spurgeon, a retired Marine and government worker, landed a job with Airbus, where he continues to work.
The family fell in love with Fairhope and its library.
"I think it's probably one of the most fantastic libraries that I've ever seen," Spurgeon said. "My wife is a big-time reader. She can read extremely fast. She reads 900 words a minute in English, and English is her second language. So she's incredible. We have lots of books. I built a library in our house, so we have quite a few books at home."
Spurgeon said he felt compelled to come forward after hearing of the controversy over children's and teen books in the library.
"It really bothered me that they would jeopardize funding over something like moving the books," he said. "And the more I learned about it and the reason they wanted to keep the books there, it just seemed silly."
Spurgeon wants others to understand that some types of materials can be harmful to individuals who have experienced trauma.
"It's not just about freedom to see what you want to see and if one parent wants their kid to see whatever, it's up to them. It's more than that," he explained. "Because in today's society, we don't have a lot of good parents. We have a lot of people that just have kids in their charge, but they're not really parenting them. They're not really guiding them and it's a true travesty."
"We also don't understand fully how bad trauma or scenes of sexual nature or violence can affect people," Spurgeon added.
Spurgeon has experienced several active shooter situations, but in 2022, his family's peace was shattered when the cartel kidnapped his wife and mother-in-law in Mexico.
"Their taxi cab got pulled over by some police officers and when the police officer stopped the cab, a truck filled with cartel members pulled behind the police officers," Spurgeon recalled. "Then the police officers left and the cartels took my wife and her mom and the taxi cab driver hostage."
His wife was able to message him a chilling image on WhatsApp, and that's when the nightmare began for the entire family.
"I got a text message and it was a man pointing a gun at her and she took the picture and you could tell that the man didn't know she had the camera out," Spurgeon said. "I was in panic mode."
Spurgeon had to pay a ransom for the cartel to release his wife and mother-in-law.
Spurgeon said he had to stay strong for his children while trying to hold it together and negotiate with the cartel. His daughter, who was 16 at the time, also had to deal with trauma.
She went to the beloved Fairhope Public Library, where she unintentionally checked out a book that described a situation similar to what her mother experienced.
"I told her, 'You shouldn't read books like that or stay away from books like that," Spurgeon said. "But she was like, 'I didn't expect it to be.' She didn't expect it to be and she didn't expect her reaction to be that way."
Spurgeon said his family's experience proves that public libraries should make changes to protect juveniles.
He said, "As a teen, they're still trying to navigate their emotions. Their brain is not fully developed. I think that we can do better as a community. I think that a lot of people kind of jump to conclusions and they lack the experience and the perspective."
"Librarians are professionals, but they're not psychologists," Spurgeon continued. "They may have never even experienced trauma or had anyone in their family experience trauma like that. And so they have no clue on how to navigate those books and what's safe."
Spurgeon said he hopes city leaders and library board members consider the consequences of their decisions.
The APLS (Alabama Public Library Service) has paused funding for the Fairhope Public Library pending the library's compliance with new guidelines. The APLS's next meeting is May 8.
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