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.
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.
