Biography
Nesrey Sood, then 26 and from Oakland, California, was a U.S. Army soldier and one of the "Presidio 27" — the stockade prisoners at the Presidio of San Francisco who, on October 14, 1968, staged a sit-down protest against brutal conditions and the killing of a fellow prisoner, Richard Bunch, who had been shot in the back by a guard three days earlier. Singing "We Shall Overcome" and reading out a list of grievances, the men were charged with mutiny, a capital offense. On appeal in June 1970 the mutiny convictions were reduced to willful disobedience, with Sood’s mutiny conviction reduced to willful disobedience; his individual physical release date remains unverified. The first to be tried, he was sentenced to fifteen years at hard labor — later cut to seven years, then two years, and finally twelve months on appeal.
