An 11-year-old boy in Chicago died on Wednesday after he tried to protect his pregnant mother from her ex-boyfriend who apparently wielded a knife in a gruesome attack, according to the New York Post. The man had been released from prison just one day before the attack.
Thirty-seven-year-old Crosetti Brand has been accused of fatally stabbing the boy and his 33-year-old mother. The boy who was killed is Jayden Perkins, according to a recent release from the Chicago Police Department.
Brand had previously been sentenced to 16 years behind bars for home invasion and aggravated assault. He had been paroled on Tuesday from the Stateville Correctional Center.
The report noted that Brand forced his way into his ex-girlfriend’s home in Edgewater, Illinois, and then “brutally attacked” the family, according to Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling. The details were revealed during a press conference on Friday.
Brand carried out the attack around the same time that the mother was prepared to take her two children to school around 8:00 a.m. The woman’s 11-year-old son stepped in to protect his mother, but he was ultimately stabbed in the chest near the doorway of their home.
Snelling noted that the woman’s five-year-old son was also around and “witnessed the attack.” The woman and her oldest son were rushed to the hospital following the attack to be treated.
WLT reported that Brand was charged with one counter of first-degree murder, one count of attempted first-degree murder, three counts of home invasion with a dangerous weapon, one count of armed robbery with a dangerous weapon, one count of aggravated domestic battery, one count of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, one count of violation of a prior order of protection, and one issuance of a warrant for a parole violation.
“There should be confidence in the criminal justice system and we would hope that incidents are rare,” Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx stated.
“However rare, this is horrific and we need to do an evaluation, particularly in this case and others, to ensure that there were no gaps in the justice system that will allow for a dangerous offender to commit the acts that he did. And as you heard the superintendent say, that there are questions and questions that need to be examined and truthfully answered so that we can prevent something like this from happening in the future.”
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