agingrebel.com
Brian Brewer, a member of the San Diego charter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, will soon die in the California State Prison at Centinela. He has lung cancer that has metastasized and infected his bones.
Brewer’s case is well known and has been used to discredit California’s sentencing practices.
He was convicted of robbing a Los Angeles area credit union in April 2002. The robbery netted $1,700. The evidence against Brewer was sketchy. He didn’t fit the description the three credit union employees who witnessed the robbery gave to police immediately after the crime. Brewer had an alibi and no physical evidence linked him to the robbery. But one of the three bank employees picked Brewer out of a photo lineup three months into the investigation and Brewer was arrested. He has maintained his evidence since.
After a trial, during which prosecutors emphasized his membership in the Hells Angels, Brewer was convicted of four counts of second-degree robbery and three counts of false imprisonment. He was given a “third strike enhancement” and sentenced to four consecutive life sentences in August 2005.
Request For Release
Last year, after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he applied for a compassionate release from prison so he could die at home. His warden, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and a prison physician all supported his release. Los Angeles County officials objected to the release and he was ordered to stay in prison on the grounds that he would “pose a threat to public safety… due to his extensive criminal history and association with a violent motorcycle gang coupled with his current full mobility.”He no longer has full mobility. He has become too weak to fill out the forms for a second application for compassionate release. A friend of his said, “He can’t even hold a pen.”
The normal end for patients with bone cancer is called “the morphine drip.” Terminal patients are administered increasing amounts of morphine to numb their pain. Eventually the morphine depresses other functions like metabolism and respiration and the patient dies.
At this time Brewer is still conscious, lucid and able to read.
Anyone who would like to cheer, make peace with or say goodbye to Brian Brewer can write him at: Brian Brewer, #V98513, Inf.-01 low, Centinela State Prison, P.O. Box 731, Imperial, Ca. 92251.