Day 21: 1st Prisoner in Corcoran SHU Dies While on Hunger Strike

[annm4peace]

Last edited Sun Jul 28, 2013, 06:23 PM - Edit history (1)

the CA prisoner hunger strike barely makes the news.. just a line or two.
they don't list the horrific conditions, how it is determinds to put some in in the SHU, and how many years they are kept in solitary confinement and how many are in solitary. I'll once again call my rep Keith Ellison and ask what is he doing to restore human and civil rights to the prisoners in CA.

http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/prisoner-in-corcoran-shu-dies-while-on-hunger-strike/


Fellow Prisoners Mourn, Advocates Raise Questions About His Death

Oakand–Mediators working on behalf of hunger striking prisoners have received disturbing news that Billy Sell, known to his friends as Guero, died while on strike at Corcoran State Prison Security Housing Unit (SHU) on Monday, July 22. His death is being ruled a suicide by prison officials. Fellow prisoners have reported that Sell was participating in California’s massive statewide hunger strike–now in its 20th day. They further reported that Sell had been requesting medical attention for several days prior to his death. They described Sell as “strong, a good person” and openly questioned the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation (CDCR) ruling his death a suicide, saying it was “completely out of character for him.” Advocates are outraged at Sell’s death, noting that it could have been prevented if CDCR had negotiated with strikers.

Mediators are working to get further accurate information and accountability from the CDCR. “This story is deeply troubling and contradicts the assurances that the hunger-striking prisoners are receiving appropriate medical care,” Says Ron Ahnen, of California Prison Focus and the mediation team representing striking prisoners. Mediators have made an official inquiry to the federal receiver overseeing California’s prisons. This report come amid growing concern for the medical care strikers are receiving, along with continued condemnation of the CDCR’s response to the strike and Gov. Brown’s total silence on the issue.


Call the Department of Correction’s new ‘public hotline number’ to voice
your concerns and support of the hunger strikers: 916-324-3397.

Sign the Peititon.
http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51040/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11455

CALL GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN

Phone: [phone]

Fax: [phone]

[annm4peace]

1. I googled Billy Sell's name... what you don't see in mainstream news.

Last edited Sun Jul 28, 2013, 06:23 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/california-inmate-billy-sell-dies-amid-hunger-strike#

At maximum-security prison Pelican Bay in upstate California there are inmates who have been in solitary confinement for 10 to 28 years.

“After 15 days in isolation the chemistry of the brain begins to change … leading to increasing rates of hallucinations, paranoia and self-mutilation," Downton told The Guardian. "It has become a default management tool rather than a tool of last resort.”
On July 8, there were 30,000 inmates participating in the hunger strike. The protest was the largest of its kind in California history. But today those numbers are just about 1,000 prisoners in 11 state prisons.

Relatives and advocates say that guards blast cold air into a striker’s cell to weaken their resolve.

http://californiacorrectionscrisis.blogspot.com/2013/07/crime-incarceration-and-human-spirit-on.html

I wonder how much coverage Sell's death will receive in the mainstream media. Any effort to honor and remember his honorable sacrifice in the struggle for better incarceration conditions is likely to be blighted by ignorant commentary negating its value because, after all, he was doing time in prison, and therefore he must have been a very bad person, or worse, not a person at all. This is the same pervasive thinking that leads people on the outside to think that inmates are somewhat coddled by what folks who are not in the know perceive as "free health care." This dehumanizing attitude means not only that people can be disinclined to stand side by side with the hunger strikers and demand better conditions for them, but also that they could completely miss the heroic aspect of the struggle and not find anything admirable in it.

[HiPointDem]

10. +1.

[annm4peace]

2. from a facebook post by support group

"It is with a heavy heavy heart I bring you the news that a hunger striker housed in 4B-3L of the Corcorcan SHU, named Billy Michael Sell, more commonly known as ‘Guero’, died on Monday the 22nd of July.

I spoke with several prisoners today about him, some that knew him very well and they were very somber and concerned. The prisoners say, “Billy died because of the Hunger Strike". That he was “strong, was a good person, a good soldier" and that the allegations by CDCR that this was a suicide are, “completely out of character for him and that he wasn’t like that" Several guys stated, “No one believes he killed himself"

He was supposedly going without water as well as food and may have had other health issues, that is unknown.

As stated below, Guero is reported to have started asking for medical attention around the 15th or 16th of July, in which he did not receive and died 4 days later. He is from Riverside but none of the guys knew how to contact his family."

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. The media will not tough it

Trust me on this

[SMC22307]

5. The PBS NewsHour might; they covered Pelican Bay last week.

Calif. Inmates 'Prepared to Starve Themselves' to Protest Indefinite Isolation
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/nation/july-dec13/hungerstrike_07-25.html

(Does "tough it" mean "cover it"?)

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. Thank you for posting this. I kick every time I see one of these CA prison hunger strike threads.

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged from entering its prisons."--Dostoyevksy

[Joe Shlabotnik]

6. kicking

[annm4peace]

7. thanks

I hope people make calls. and i wish it had a 100 kicks.

it just shows you how Guantanamo pales in compare to what the US prisons are like.

[Lancero]

8. What this story isn't telling you...

Is that he didn't starve or die of thirst. He died because he hung himself.

[Gravitycollapse]

11. Where are you getting this information?

[DLevine]

9. Our prisons have become hellholes. nt

[annm4peace]

12. how many phone calls

or signers of petitions will it take for Gov Brown to meet their demands ? or at least meet with their representatives ?