{"id":18840,"date":"2013-07-27T21:41:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-28T01:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=18840"},"modified":"2013-07-27T21:41:36","modified_gmt":"2013-07-28T01:41:36","slug":"the-first-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2013\/07\/the-first-death\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1pel\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We received the following letter just this morning. We deeply morn the loss of \u2018Guero,\u2019 the first to die in the hunger strike.\u00a0 He died for more than himself. Killed by his conditions, by this system, we remember him.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is with a heavy heavy heart I bring you the news that a\u00a0hunger striker\u00a0housed in 4B-3L of the Corcorcan SHU, named Billy Michael Sell, more commonly known as \u2018Guero\u2019, 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\u00a0concerned. The prisoners say, \u201cBilly died because of the Hunger Strike”. That he was \u201cstrong, was a good person, a good soldier” and that the allegations by CDCR that this was a suicide are, \u201ccompletely out of character for him and that he wasn\u2019t like that” Several guys stated, \u201cNo 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is more about him from a letter drafted for the Statewide Medical Executive, Dr. Tharrett:<\/span><\/p>\n

“We have confirmed that CDCR claims that Billy Sell, P41250, age 32, housed in the Security Housing Unit, allegedly took his own life on July 22, 2013.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to information we have gathered, Mr. Sell was not under care for mental illness at the time of his death.\u00a0 According to other inmates near his cell, he had been requesting medical attention \u201cfor a few days” and had not received it by July 22.\u00a0 The other prisoners who knew Billy confirmed that he was on the hunger strike and said it would be very strange and uncharacteristic of him to take his own life.\u00a0 Inmates said that the guards reported he had hanged himself.\u00a0 The other prisoners doubt the veracity of that story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So the time has come that we were dreading but also trying to prepare for. No matter how Billy died, his life mattered and I believe that we as a coalition need to respond. I would like to suggest that we do some kind of vigil\/press conference\/rally at the CDCR building in Oakland, unless that was already being organized. Of course we can talk about this at Mondays meeting but I really think we should start thinking of ideas now.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know that the mediation team is preparing look into\u00a0further investigation on the legal front, so we will see what happens with that. In the meantime of any of your loved ones\/correspondents\/etc. are housed at Corcoran in 4B-3L and they may have some info about this, have known him, heard him requesting medical attention, please let us know.<\/span><\/p>\n

I hope you all are well and with someone you love<\/span><\/p>\n

In honor and respect of Billy \u2018Guero\u2019 Sell,<\/span><\/p>\n

~[Omitted]<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We received the following letter just this morning. We deeply morn the loss of \u2018Guero,\u2019 the first to die in the hunger strike.\u00a0 He died..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,166,185,84,97],"tags":[197,227,347],"class_list":["post-18840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discrimination","category-government","category-prisons","category-statements","category-us-news","tag-imperialism","tag-racist-oppression","tag-workers-struggle"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1pel.jpg?fit=640%2C464&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}