While young men don’t have the physical size and strength to go toe to toe with adult men with evil in their hearts, when armed with a gun they can become equals to those same bad men. In the case we covered from Charlotte, North Carolina, an 11-year-old with the heart of a lion accessed his mom’s gun and shot the man who was strangling her. In a tragic case from Chicago last week, an brave 11-year-old didn’t have access to a firearm.
In Chicago, young Jayden Perkins also had the heart of a lion. He courageously came to his mother’s defense against a crazed lunatic ex-boyfriend who was stabbing her. Unfortunately, thanks in part to Illinois’ oppressive gun control laws, brave young Jayden Perkins didn’t have access to a gun and was no match for an adult thug who had just been released from prison.
Jayden was stabbed in the chest and the knife severed his carotid artery. Crosetti Brand, the serial domestic abuser, angry at the woman about a relationship he’d had with her over 15 years earlier, killed the young man and his mom is in critical condition fighting for her life.
CWB Chicago has more:
Jayden Perkins was murdered Wednesday morning while trying to save his mother from her ex-boyfriend, a violent man with a long criminal history who forced his way into their Edgewater home with a knife less than 24 hours after being released from prison.
Prosecutors revealed details of the 11-year-old’s death and the vicious stabbing of his mother during a detention hearing for Crosetti Brand, the 37-year-old parolee charged with the attack.
Brand and Perkins’ 33-year-old mom dated more than 15 years ago. Brand was convicted of domestic-related crimes involving the woman several times between 2006 and 2009, including three violations of orders of protection, prosecutors said in a proffer of facts provided to CWBChicago.
When he was served with one of those orders in open court years ago, he ripped up the paperwork in front of the judge, who held him in direct contempt of court, prosecutors said.
He received a 16-year sentence for a 2015 home invasion in which he choked a different ex-girlfriend during a home invasion and stole her car, court records show. State officials released him in October, and before he walked out of prison, officials handed him a memo reminding him that an active order of protection barred him from contacting Jayden’s mom, the proffer said.
In January, Brand texted a threat to Jayden’s mom and family, then rang her doorbell and pulled on her front door the next day, according to the proffer. Jayden’s mom contacted the parole board about the incident, and they sent him back to prison. But not for long.
Just a few weeks later, on Tuesday, the state again released Brand with another warning about the active order of protection, prosecutors said. Authorities also notified Jayden’s mom that he was getting out.
At 7:46 a.m., Jayden’s mom was talking with her mother on the phone as he and his 6-year-old half-brother got ready for school in their apartment in the 5900 block of North Ravenswood. Preparing to leave with the kids, she unlocked the door. Brand was on the other side.
Prosecutors said he forced his way through the doorway and began stabbing the woman. She repeatedly screamed for him to stop, using his nickname: “No, CO!” According to the proffer, the woman’s mother heard her daughter’s screams until the phone disconnected.
Jayden tried time and time again to help his mom. Brand stabbed him in the chest, severing the child’s carotid artery, prosecutors said. She managed to lock herself in a bathroom. He tried, but failed, to kick in the door.
The next time you hear gun control and victim disarmament advocates touting legislation to force people to lock up their guns to keep them from minor children, ask them if they know about Jayden Perkins. Tell them to say his name.
A young man as brave as Perkins doesn’t deserve to be forgotten about just because he couldn’t access a gun. If he had a firearm that day, he and his mom would likely still be together. And a just-released habitually violent domestic abuser would have assumed room temperature after bringing a knife to a gunfight.
“If it saves just one life…” they love to say in support of victim disarmament. When you hear that, you should ask them whose life are they’re more concerned with saving…the innocent victims’ or the criminal perpetrators’?
2 Responses
The young man is among those who I admire. He went into the fight outclassed and still did what he could to protect his mother. That is heart.
“That is heart.”
And a pair of big, no, *massive* brass balls. It’s stories like that that give me hope for the next generation…