What an absolute mess in Illinois. A dangerous criminal was granted parole and killed a young boy less than 24 hours after his release. Crosetti Brand, 37, killed Jayden Perkins, 11, on March 13. The attack has been described as an ambush. Brand stabbed the child to death.
The state’s parole board granted Brand’s petition, so this was a preventable tragedy. The fallout led to the resignation of the president of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. Another member also resigned. There’s no surviving this public relations nightmare. To make matters worse, the victim’s mother, Laterria Smith, had requested a protective order against Brand in February (via NY Post):
Wow. Wow. WOW this is horrible. https://t.co/X3zwXzEZnp
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 26, 2024
Board chair Donald Shelter and board member LeAnn Miller stepped down on Monday in the wake of 11-year-old Jayden Perkins’ murder on March 13, according to CBS 2.
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Crosetti Brand, 37, allegedly ambushed Perkins and his mother, Laterria Smith, in the doorway of their Edgewater residence less than 24 hours after he was granted parole from the Stateville Correctional Center, the local Chicago station reported.
Miller reportedly approved Brand for parole the day before.
The heinous incident elicited widespread outrage, in part because Smith had begged for an order of protection against Brand just last month.
At the time of the filing, Brand was doing 16 years behind bars for home invasion and aggravated assault.
A Cook County judge scheduled a hearing about the order for March 13, according to CBS 2.
Miller, however, wrote a report that approved Brand for parole on the 12th – and Smith and her son were attacked just hours before the hearing was supposed to take place.
Both the Illinois Department of Corrections and the Illinois Prisoner Review Board subsequently claimed they did not know about the protection order hearing, CBS 2 reported.
But emails obtained by the outlet indicated that the Department of Corrections knew about the hearing as early as Feb. 22.
Democrats are combating an image that they’re soft on crime and have lost the plot on public safety issues. This story is what happens when feelings replace facts regarding the fight against crime.
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