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Mother’s hunger strike continues, protesters demand investigation into Duquesne football player’s death

PITTSBURGH — A large group of people gathered at Freedom Corner in Pittsburgh’s Hill District neighborhood to protest the suspicious death of a Duquesne University football player in 2018.

Dannielle Brown, the mother of Duquesne University football player Marquis Jaylen Brown, is on a hunger strike to pressure authorities into reopening her son’s case. Marquis Brown died after jumping 16 stories from a dorm room window nearly two years ago.

It was Marquis Brown’s, or JB as his friends knew him, 21st birthday. According to police, Brown threw a chair through his dorm window and jumped to his death after he was reported to have been acting erratically.

Dannielle Brown said she had just talked to her son that night, who had told her he had just got a haircut and was excited to see his family that weekend for the university’s homecoming football game.

But a few hours later, he was dead. She said she knows no more now than what authorities told her that night in October 2018.

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Brown’s mother is still pleading for answers, but dozens of strangers joined her fight for justice recently.

On Saturday, a group of protesters marched from Freedom Corner to the university’s campus, demanding a full independent investigation into his death.

“As I’m walking, I’m thinking and praying that we can come to a (resolution), and it only involves two words: full access,” Dannielle Brown.

Dannielle Brown has been on a hunger strike at Freedom Corner since July 4. She said she’s ready to take her last breath there in Pittsburgh just like her son did if that’s what she has to do to get answers.