When an 11-year-old boy is killed trying to protect his mother, something has clearly gone very wrong

She called police. She was in touch with her abuser’s parole officer. She went to court when the man sent her menacing text messages and showed up outside her Edgewater apartment.

The 33-year-old woman took every legal precaution imaginable to ensure her safety, yet the criminal justice system failed her and her children. Especially 11-year-old Jayden Perkins, who died trying to protect his mom when adults failed — or at the very least, didn’t fully consider the potential dangers that lay ahead.

Jayden may have known what his mother’s ex-boyfriend, Crosetti Brand, was capable of, as Brand had beaten her before. Even if Jayden didn’t know about Brand’s past abuse, he didn’t hesitate to intervene when, on March 13, police say Brand barged into the family’s home and attacked him and his pregnant mother with a knife.

The authorities weren’t as urgent about keeping Jayden’s mother out of harm’s way, even with Brand’s criminal records at their fingertips. His rap sheet included a handful of orders of protection violations. That Brand was willing to flout the law numerous times should have been red flags to any judicial entity. But that didn’t appear to be the case when Jayden’s mother desperately sought to shield herself and her loved ones.

There’s no shortage of statistics clearly showing the pervasiveness of domestic violence in the U.S. Every minute, there are about 20 people physically abused by a romantic companion. One in 4 children are exposed to intimate partner violence. Two-thirds of the country’s mass shootings are tied to domestic violence. The list goes on.

The judicial system and police departments nationwide have implemented training and created domestic violence courts in efforts to be more sensitive to survivors and hold abusers accountable.

Then why do so many people still end up losing their lives, as Jayden did, in domestic violence incidents? The answer is simple, said Vickie Smith, CEO and president of the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

The issue is just “not taken seriously,” Smith said.

Many survivors hesitate to call police, and most of those who have previously sought assistance from law enforcement are apprehensive about placing such a call again, according to a 2021 survey by the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

More than half of survivors — 55% — said they were discriminated against in some way during their interaction with police. Most weren’t hopeful about future interactions, as 71% worried police would do nothing and 68% were concerned officers would blame them for the assault or not believe their claims.

“We have a long way to go in trying to understand how deadly and determined perpetrators can be,” Smith said. “If a perpetrator is willing to break an order of protection and use violence, they will only get more violent.”

“We have to take victims more seriously,” she added. “We can’t keep saying, ‘It’s a he saidshe said, so we don’t really know.’ If they [victims] are saying it’s happening, it’s happening.”

An abuser changes his story

The Illinois Prisoner Review Board decided to release Brand, a felon with a long history of violating orders of protection, from prison on March 12.

Brand had been imprisoned a few weeks before for contacting the woman, along with other parole violations. He initially admitted he went to the woman’s apartment on Feb. 1, but then backtracked and said he didn’t. That revised narrative and data from a parolee tracking system were enough for the board to conclude there wasn’t enough evidence to corroborate the woman’s claims, the Sun-Times’ Tom Schuba reported last week.

A Cook County judge had scheduled a follow-up hearing with Jayden’s mother for the day after Brand was freed. She had come to court previously to request an emergency protective order on Feb. 21, but the judge reasoned she didn’t need one, as Brand was in prison.

But by the morning of March 13, Brand managed to force his way inside the woman’s apartment and stab her and Jayden, police said.

Jayden’s mother had an existing non-expiring protective order, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office says. That didn’t stop Brand.

Most survivors do feel safer once a protective order is in place, but there is no guarantee they will not experience abuse after the order is issued. And Black women, like Jayden’s mother, face an increased risk of renewed abuse following legal intervention, in the form of a protective order or a domestic violence arrest, according to a 2022 report in Penn State’s Journal of Law & International Affairs.

Brand is now back in custody. If Jayden’s mother’s pleas hadn’t been brushed off or ignored, Brand may have been sitting in a cell a long time ago.

The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines.