Convicted Murderer Goes on Hunger Strike, Dies

By Erin Sherbert Wed., Feb. 22 2012 at 8:35 AM

That's really small

A California convicted murderer died in prison earlier this month after staging a hunger strike to protest the way he and his fellow inmates are treated while living in solitary confinement.

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 27-year-old Christian Alexander Gomez died on Feb. 2, just six days after he and 31 other inmates stopped eating. Gomez was one of the thousands of inmates who had been staging hunger strikes since last July to protest shoddy prison conditions.

As the hunger strikes grew, prisoners became sick, and their health deteriorated to critical conditions, but nobody died as a result of the strike, officials had previously told SF Weekly.

But on Feb. 2, Gomez was found unresponsive in his cell at Corcoran State Prison. He was taken to an outside hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. He had been held in the prison's segregation unit, where prisoners have limited access to exercise yards, after being charged with attacking a fellow prisoner, CDCR spokeswoman Terry Thornton told reporters.

Gomez had been serving a life sentence for first-degree murder and attempted murder.

An autopsy is still being conducted to confirm Gomez's cause of death, Thornton said.

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Tags:

Christian Alexander Gomez, Corcoran State Prison, hunger strike, Terry Thornton

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Dee

Thats not of it how went down all 31 inmates were occused and thats y they were sent to the hole , they couldnt find the person who had stabbed the guy . My cousin happen to be among those who were sent to the hole and died beacuse of the hungre strick and probably because he didnt receive medical attention in time . Im not defending what he did was right but they are not animals .

No Excuses

Dee you have no idea what you are talking about. 31 inmates were not sent to "the hole" over the attack your cousin did. 31 convicted felons were on a hunger strike because they didn't have access to tv's. Nurses make rounds in the building 4+ times a day, and there is a nurses station in the housing unit. Many of the hunger strike inmates continued to use drugs (illegal & others prescribed meds) and/or drink alcohol. Add in health issues that a common in prison, Hep-C, HIV, high blood pressure (all the soups), diabetes, etc... it was only a matter of time before an inmate died.

He was a convicted murderer and a gang member that continued the behavior in prison. Karma caught up to him, and he had to meet his maker (I doubt it went well). Maybe his family should do whatever it can to stop future generations from wasting their lives in prison and in the gang life. There is no excuse to be a drain on society, if you're raised well and have a sense of self, its pretty hard to not positively contribute to society.

Reginald Stonebody

You murder somebody, then try to kill somebody else, and then attack another inmate, you just might deserve "shoddy" conditions. Just sayin...

guest

Those are nothing but LIES!!! You don't even know him! If you knew him then you would probably know how ignorant and how naive you are to fall for those pathetic lies.

CAneedsHELP

This is an incredibly sad and tragic situation. Even those among us who have made bad choices, are capable of carrying an important message. Americans like to pretend, that if we close our eyes the problem will disappear.