Pablo Piña D-28079
SAT-F Ad-Seg 178
P.O. Box 5244
Corcoran, CA 93212

Jan. 28, 2014

Re: Ad-Seg Update (Post):

Greetings.

I know I haven't been writing a lot these past months. It is not from lack of information, but because I've been busy with a lot of stuff. And I'm still waiting to see what is going to be done with me in committee.

But what I wanted to discuss today was suicide. No, not me, but a good friend of mine.

My friend was Michael Sosa. They called him "Manos" ("hands" in English) because as young teenagers, he had some huge mitts. :) I met him in CYA. When some other friends of mine wanted to jump him, I stood up for him against my friends. And we became the best of friends. But as we got older, we came to prison and conitnued our life of crime. We got involved in gang activity. The last time I saw him was 22 years ago. He decided to change his way of life and left the gang activity. I stayed. I spent all those years in the SHU while he was out on a mainline. All those years I used to think of him, wondering how he was and hoping he did okay.

I did not know until yesterday while talking to another prisoner that my friend had committed suicide here in this prison. I didn't even know he was in this prison. I couldn't believe it; I still don't. He was a strong and solid individual. Suicide was not in his vocabulary. Like it isn't in mine, at least that's what I thought. I was up all night thinking of my friend and what could have brought him to go out like that, and the way he did it. For me, it was painful and I am really heart-broken. He wouldn't have done it if I was there, I know it. He could talk to me. I was his brother.

From bits and pieces I've heard, he was denied parole again and his mother had just died. She was the last remaining member of his family. But he failed to remember me. I still had a lot of love for him. I don't agree that he had valued his life so little. He thought he was never going to get out.

But so much has changed since his death in 2007, seven years later. CDCR is thinking about releasing inmates who are over 60 years old and who have more than 25 years in prison. Why couldn't he of waited seven years? I'm gonna miss my boy!