9/14/04: Another young man has died inside a California Youth Authority prison. CYA staff found Dyron Brewer "unresponsive" in his cell at the N.A. Chaderjian ("Chad") facility on Sunday, 9/5 at about 3:45 a.m. Dyron was 24 years old. He was from Oakland. "We need answers, we need to know why [he died]," says his sister Twanisha Brewer.

Brewer's is the fourth death in CYA custody this year. Two wards, ages 17 and 18, hung themselves in January in a cell they shared at a facility in Ione; another, Roberto Lombana, 18, died later that month at Chad after ingesting cleaning fluid.

Jakada Imani, program director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, said a photograph of Brewer was "deeply alarming" to the family: "Dyron was almost beyond recognition to them in these pictures"; there were "marks on his body that we don't know what to make of because we're not pathologists."

"A lot of questions remain unanswered. How did Dyron die? Why does this keep happening? How can we stop this from ever happening again?" ask Books Not Bars organizers, who called for a protest on Sunday, September 19th with Dyron's family at Chad in Stockton. Details | Photos