A woman whose 11-year-old son, Jayden Perkins, was stabbed to death in front of his five-year-old brother while attempting to defend his pregnant mother against a vicious and murderous attack by her ex-boyfriend has filed suit against Gov. JB Pritzker's Illinois Prisoner Review Board and other law enforcement agencies, asserting her son would still be alive if the IPRB had not released the boyfriend from custody the day before the attack, despite an escalating series of documented threats made by the boyfriend against the woman.
On March 13, Laterria Smith filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court against the IPRB, the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County Sheriff's Office.
The lawsuit accused all of them of essentially doing next to nothing to prevent her former boyfriend, Crosetti Brand, from attacking her and her family, despite knowing he presented a clear threat to their safety and allegedly should have remained in police custody on other charges.
Jayden Perkins was murdered at the age of 11 as he attempted to defend his mother against a murderous assault by her ex-boyfriend, who state authorities had just released from prison the day before.
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The lawsuit accused the IPRB and police agencies of "collective failures," leading to Perkins' murder.
"Because of these collective failures, Jayden Perkins was forced to endure the unthinkable," the lawsuit said. "He suffered. He fought. He died knowing that the adults in power had abandoned him."
Brand has been charged with first-degree murder and other charges related to his attack on Smith and her children in their home in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood in March 2024.
The attack came just one day after the Illinois Prisoner Review Board had ordered Brand released from prison.
Brand was serving a 16 year prison sentence on convictions related to home invasion and aggravated assault. He had been paroled in October 2023.
However, police had taken him back into custody in February 2024, after Smith told police Brand had sent her threatening text messages and allegedly attempted to force his way into the apartment Smith shared with her two children, Perkins and then-five-year-old Kameron Miles, despite an order of protection forbidding him from doing so.
According to court documents, when Brand was later confronted by a parole officer about Smith's accusations, Brand allegedly lied, telling officers he was merely looking for an apartment.
However, he was taken back to Stateville Correctional Center on multiple parole violations.
According to court documents, Smith told both police and a Cook County judge of Brand's threats against her.
However, on March 12, the IPRB nonetheless released Brand from custody after a hearing.
According to court documents, Brand reportedly again lied at the IPRB hearing about going to Smith's home. And according to court documents, the IPRB reportedly "accepted his version of events," never following up on Smith's allegations against him, including declining to ask Smith to testify and tell her account of the events.
The very next day, on March 13, 2024, Brand returned to Smith's apartment, forced his way into the home with a knife, "launching a brutal and premeditated attack that should have never been allowed to happen," the complaint said.
Smith was stabbed multiple times in her back, neck and chest, "suffering life-threatening injuries while desperately trying to defend her children."
Perkins attempted to intervene to defend his mother, only to also be stabbed repeatedly by Brand, resulting in his death.
According to the complaint and published reports, the attack and murder occurred in front of Miles, forcing him "to watch his brother die and his mother nearly killed, suffering profound and irreversible psychological trauma."
Following Perkins' murder and the public outcry that followed, IPRB Chairman Donald Shelton resigned from the board, along with IPRB member LeAnn Miller, who had presided over the hearing that resulted in Brand's release.
All of the current members of the IPRB have been appointed by Gov. JB Pritzker.
Miller was appointed by Pritzker in 2021. Miller's appointment won confirmation from the Illinois State Senate despite concerns raised by some Republican state senators over Miller's backing of the release from prison of a woman who had killed her infant daughters in the 1980s.
Shelton,a former longtime Champaign Police Officer, had served on the IPRB since 2012, when he was appointed by former Gov. Pat Quinn. Pritzker had reappointed Shelton to the IPRB as recently as 2023.
Pritzker and all other prominent Illinois Democrats have been staunch supporters of criminal justice reforms focused on reducing the effects of so-called systemic racism, in part by reducing the number of black individuals and other racial minorities in prison, offering those facing and convicted of criminal charges greater opportunities to avoid lengthy incarceration and reintegrate into society.
Following Perkins' death, Pritzker placed the blame for the boy's murder on Miller and the IPRB, saying Miller and Shelton made the correct decisions to resign.
"It is clear that evidence in this case was not given the careful consideration that victims of domestic violence deserve and I am committed to ensuring additional safeguards and training are in place to prevent tragedies like this from happening again," Pritzker said in a statement issued March 25, 2024. "My thoughts are with Laterria Smith as she recovers and with the entire family of Jayden Perkins as we mourn this tragic loss - may his memory be a blessing."
In her lawsuit, Smith and her attorneys agreed the IPRB bore responsibility for Perkins' murder and said the state should pay for allowing Brand to go free, even in the face of clear evidence he should remain in custody, given his continued threats against Smith and her family.
The lawsuit accuses the IPRB of allowing a "state-created danger" to persist against Smith and her family, and of "deliberate indifference" to credible, specific and continuing threats from Brand.
"This deliberate indifference by IPRB set in motion the chain of events that led to the brutal murder of an innocent child," the lawsuit said. "They did not simply fail to act - they actively enabled Brand's violence by placing him in a position where he was almost certain to reoffend.
"... IPRB's deliberate failure to account for Brand's violent history and blatant parole violations was the moving force behind this tragedy, making it directly liable..."
The lawsuit seeks payouts from the IPRB, as well as Shelton and Miller, individually; the city of Chicago; and the Cook County Sheriff's Office.
The lawsuit includes a combined 31 counts against the various defendants, collectively, including counts for the wrongful death of Perkins and the emotional suffering of Miles.
Smith is represented by attorneys Cozette A. Otubusin and Paul O. Otubusin, of the firm of Otubusin & Otubusin, of Chicago.
In a statement accompanying the filing of the lawsuit, Paul Otubusin said:
“This lawsuit is not just about securing justice for Laterria and her deceased son but about highlighting and correcting the profound systemic failures that allowed this tragedy to occur.
"We must prevent such neglect from ever happening again to protect innocent lives like Kameron’s, who will carry the emotional scars of this event forever.”