The many layers of the Jayden Perkins tragedy
& read the room, Mr. Mayor. It's time to sit down and talk, not punch back
3-21-2024 (issue No. 133)
This week:
Sickening failures in the justice system resulted in the killing of an 11-year-old
Mayor Brandon Johnson needs to bring reality home — he got whupped Tuesday, so now what?
News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked on pro-Palestinian protests against Joe Biden and more
Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
What’s on “The Mincing Rascals” podcast this week — A long look at the returns, natch
Re:Tweets — The annual bracket tournament is down to the Tweet 16
Good Sports — Good news at last from Hinsdale, and more
Tune of the Week — Reader Deni Mayer nominates “I Still Believe” by Frank Turner
Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.
The horrifying ineptitude of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board in releasing a serial stalker who then (allegedly) killed an 11-year-old boy
The Sun-Times has the infuriating receipts on the systemic failures that allowed Crosetti Brand to be walking free on March 13, the day police say he burst into the Edgewater apartment of his pregnant former girlfriend and stabbed her 11-year-old son Jayden Perkins to death as he attempted to protect her from the attack.
The woman had been alerted when Brand, 37, was released on parole in October because she was the victim in previous domestic violence cases against him, including repeated violations of protection orders. …
Brand (had been) serving eight years of a 16-year sentence for attacking another ex-partner and pointing a gun at her son in 2015. He also has a long record of convictions for violating orders of protections. … He was cited for five separate violations involving the woman who was stabbed.
On Jan. 30, Brand reportedly sent text messages to the woman threatening to kill her and her family, then showed up at her door two days later as she was getting her children ready to go to school.
When Brand arrived at her North Side home on Feb. 1, she quickly reported that he “was presently at her door stalking her,” according to a parole violation report obtained through a public records request. …
She said responding officers didn’t allow her to file a police report, but told her to seek an order of protection against Brand.
Brand initially told parole officials “that he was merely looking for an apartment,” the Sun-Times reported, but he was quickly sent to the Stateville Correctional Center and “cited for a series of alleged parole violations, including coming into contact with the woman.”
But within weeks, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board decided to release him again when Brand changed his story and denied going to her home. During a Feb. 26 hearing before the board, Brand and his attorney said there was no evidence that he traveled to the woman’s home, records show.
Brand, who was on electronic monitoring at the time, insisted that “GPS would have picked up on it and it didn’t” — an account that was apparently backed up by data from a parolee tracking system.
The board determined there wasn’t enough evidence to corroborate the woman’s claims, even though she wasn’t called to testify, records show.
Not enough evidence? How about not enough due diligence? For corroboration, how about calling the woman to testify? How about having her show the text messages Brand reportedly sent her? How about calling the responding police officers who didn’t allow her to file a potentially corroborating police report? How about considering the idea that electronic monitoring of pre-trial detainees is inexact and glitchy? How about taking a look at Brand’s history of vindictive stalking and using a wee bit of common sense?
A little less than three weeks later, the woman asked Cook County Judge Thomas Nowinski for an emergency order of protection from the man she reportedly dated some 15 years earlier.
From a Tribune editorial:
The judge made no effort, it appears from the transcript of the brief proceeding in which she made her case to him, to determine how long Brand would be confined or why he was there.
Brand was released the day before the fatal attack on Jayden when the Illinois Prison Review Board “determined the alleged violations did not meet the preponderance of evidence standard,” said a statement from the board.
The multilevel incompetence here was staggering. Brand is a career abuser, red flags fluttering all about him. The electronic monitoring device evidently fails. The police don’t file a report when Brand threatens a woman he’d been repeatedly accused of harassing. A judge gives the ho-hum to her request for an emergency order of protection. The Illinois Prisoner Review Board barely bothers to investigate the woman’s claims before freeing Brand.
If Brand is found guilty of murder, blood is on many hands.
And about the victim …
A main reason why this story has become international news is the heroism of Jayden, a child who lost his life attempting to defend his mother and his 5-year-old brother from a savage attack. The younger brother was not injured, and the mother is recuperating at home after a hospital stay.
Mack Liederman’s Block Club Chicago profile underscores the tragedy:
(Amy Giordano, executive director of Gus Giordano Dance School where he studied) said Jayden was a dancer talented beyond his years, one of just 13 boys in the company featuring over 100 of the city’s brightest young dancers. …
“You couldn’t take your eyes off Jayden. He was fully engaged in every class, every performance, from start to finish,” Giordano said. “He could take any movement and make it his own.”
His energy and joy for dance was infectious, Giordano said.
“If he was in the building, it was a positive,” she said. “Jayden gave other dancers the encouragement to just go for it. He was already a teacher to his peers.”
The story quotes Lori Zaimi, principal of Peirce Elementary School, 1423 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., where Jayden was a sixth grader and a star in theater productions. He was “that kid who shined in every space that he was in,” she said. “He connected everyone.”
The charisma and promise of this young man and the magnitude of this loss are searingly apparent in this short video posted by the dance school:
His memory, and the determination to do better by victims of domestic violence, should live on and on.
‘Greatest city in the world’ deals its mayor a sharp rebuke. He isn’t getting the message
In the fall of 2020, 71.4% of Chicago voters supported the referendum seeking to amend the Illinois Constitution to allow for graduated income tax rates that would impact wealthier residents.
That referendum lost statewide, but the local “tax the rich” result augured well for the “Bring Chicago Home” referendum on Tuesday’s ballot, a proposal promoted by Mayor Brandon Johnson that asked voters to give the City Council permission to raise the real estate transfer tax on properties that sell for more than $1 million.
I thought it would pass and, despite some misgivings and apprehensions, hoped it would pass. The anticipated $100 million in annual revenue was earmarked for alleviating the problem of homelessness, and the city needs to do more to provide safe shelters and permanent housing for those without a place to live.
It did not pass. At this writing, the ballot question had just 46.4% of the vote, 25 percentage points lower than the “tax the rich” proposal won less than four years ago. The defeat is a clear indication that city residents do not have confidence in Johnson’s leadership and are not all-in on his progressive agenda. Yet he was defiant Wednesday in speaking to reporters.
“This is the greatest city in the world. There’s not a fight that we have not taken on that we won’t have the ability to win,” Johnson said. “The progressive agenda — again, from dealing with mental health, dealing with education, dealing with workers — that progressive agenda is expansive, as it should be. Forty-plus years, decades of disinvestment.” …
He also refused to extend an olive branch to the real estate lobby and claimed the biggest opposition came from communities with “the same people who want to see Donald Trump … be president again.
“It was cowardly. Cowardly,” Johnson said about the referendum’s opposition attacking his tenure as mayor. “Look, you can have your position. Whatever it is. There are 68,000 people who are unhoused in this city. 70% of them are Black. … It was cowardly. But I’m still here, still standing. And I will be punching back.”
First, Donald Trump got 12% of the vote in Chicago in 2016 and just 16% in 2020. Pinning this loss on Trumpers is churlish.
Second, the number of people experiencing homelessness in the city on any given day was estimated to be around 6,000 in the most recent point-in-time count. The higher number is a yearly estimate that includes those who are doubling up with friends or other family members. And while both numbers are too high and create a moral imperative, it would pay the mayor not to engage in hyperbole.
Third, the implication that those who voted against a measure to address homelessness are racist because 70% of those experiencing homelessness are Black (actually 75%, according to the point-in-time report) is no way to change the minds of those who had legitimate concerns about the impact of graduating the real estate transfer tax.
And, finally, opponents I communicated with were concerned about the impact on the overall real estate market and how the increase in taxes might trickle down to lower-income people in the form of higher rents and prices. They were not happy that the increase would apply to owners of multiunit buildings, which are key to providing housing. They were peeved rather than pleased that the referendum included the bribe of a small tax break on the transfer of lower-priced properties, a sweetener that did not require voter approval. And, because they don’t trust Chicago politicians to spend wisely, they wanted much more specificity about how and where the city was going to spend that $100 million in additional revenue.
The campaign for Bring Chicago Home clearly didn’t adequately address those concerns and seemed to focus more on shaming as heartless and greedy those who opposed it. If “punching back” involves doubling down on the obloquy during an attempt in November to once again put this question to voters — a possibility he didn’t commit to Wednesday — Johnson will end up with his back on the canvas again.
Best guesses
Assuming Eileen O’Neill Burke hangs on to her narrow lead over Clayton Harris III in the Democratic primary for Cook County States Attorney, I missed one of my nine stab-in-the-dark guesses about the results of Tuesday’s voting when I predicted Bring Chicago Home would pass. Readers Ronald Fox and Joan Esposito — yes, that Joan Esposito! — beat me by getting all nine correct. They win the coveted tip of my press fedora.
News & Views
Be careful what you wish for
News: A pro-Palestine protester interrupted the Chicago City Council meeting by shouting, “Mayor Johnson, cancel the DNC! Genocide Joe isn’t welcome in Chicago!”
View: Stopping the bloodshed in Gaza and protecting innocent Palestinians are urgent and noble causes, but anyone who thinks “Genocide Joe” is worse for Palestinians or Muslims in general than “Deadly Don” would be has not been keeping up with the news. Here’s Slate:
Donald Trump on Sunday said Israel should quickly end the war in Gaza and “get back to the world of peace”—but it’s not what it sounds like.
The once and possibly future president was not urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the bombing or withdraw Israeli troops. Quite the contrary: Trump was prodding him to intensify and accelerate the military campaign, “to finish it up and do it quickly.”
He lambasted President Biden not for going easy on Israel, as leftist critics charge, but for applying pressure on Israel at all.
Pot/kettle report
News: Donald Trump said recently of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker: “You have this guy Pritzker. I don't know, he's too busy eating. He wants to eat all the time. Would you like a hamburger? How many do you want? Five? I’ll have five burgers, please. You go to his office. Would you like a hamburger? Yeah. I’ll have five burgers, please. Who the hell orders five burgers?”
View: Body shaming is such a juvenile, bullying act. But if you’re going to do it, don’t be a junk-food scarfing bag of goo.
Yet another call for truth-first journalism
News: A Tribune story Wednesday carried the headline “Man sentenced to 60 years for home invasions, shooting in west suburbs,” and the first paragraph repeated the 60-year claim. It wasn’t until the 11th paragraph that we learned the convicted man “will be eligible for parole after serving 41.5 years.”
View: Since there is no way aside from committing another crime behind bars that the man will serve a day over 41.5 years, the headline and story should banner the 41.5 years and add the fictional technicality of the 60-year sentence way down in the story.
Goodbye Columbus?
News: Columbus Drive in Chicago would be renamed for Barack Obama under a proposal introduced in the City Council Wednesday.
View: I love everything about this idea. No notes.
Land of Linkin’
Inside Higher Ed’s annual Academic Performance Tournament. “Unlike traditional NCAA brackets, ours determines the winners of each game by comparing the academic performance of teams, as measured by the NCAA’s own flawed metrics for judging academic success.” Try to guess the winner before you look below.*
“How Chicago’s long history of migrant influxes has shaped its population,” by WBEZ’s Tessa Weinberg and Amy Qin. “Whether from Europe, the South or Mexico, Chicago has seen upticks in new arrivals before — not always with open arms.”
My score is 95. Here is the lineup of 167 performers/groups scheduled to perform at Lollapalooza 2024 Aug. 1-4 in Chicago’s Grant Park. Start with 100 and subtract one point for every act that you have heard of. The result, I’m told, is your “pop-cultural age.”
A YouTube video explains to the curious, “What's the REAL difference between old time and bluegrass?”
“Trump’s ‘bloodbath’ tirade contained a warning on Chinese cars. Here are the facts.” From Politico.
*This year’s winner of the Inside Higher Ed Academic Performance Tournament is the University of Alabama. I know, right?
Squaring up the news
This is a bonus supplement to the Land of Linkin’ from veteran radio, internet and newspaper journalist Charlie Meyerson. Each week, he offers a selection of intriguing links from his daily email news briefing Chicago Public Square:
■ Democratic political strategist Johnny Palmadessa’s created a live Trump debt tracker and court-case countdown clock.
■“Why ban books when you can ban book awards?” Literary Activism columnist Kelly Jensen notes that a far north suburban school board has canceled participation in a statewide program where fourth through eighth graders get to vote on their favorite books.
■ Ex-New Yorker humor columnist Andy Borowitz is back in the email newsletter biz. Here’s the first installment .
■ Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin: “What Donald Trump said on Monday about Jews—and Democratic Jews in particular—… requires more than stenography. But that’s what we got in most mainstream news outlets.”
■ Law professor Joyce Vance reviews Trump’s “dark turn” in Ohio.
■ Mediaite recaps Trump’s hateful appearance on Fox News Sunday.
■ “Any foreign adversary seeking to buy a president knows the price.” That’s Illinois Rep. Sean Casten, quoted by Donald Trump’s niece, Mary L. Trump, who says “the fact that Donald owes such a vast sum of money—and does not seem to be able to cover his debt—should prompt the media to take a much closer look at what is really going on with Donald’s finances.”
■ Visionary author and filmmaker Michael Moore: Trump “may be an idiot and a bigot, but he’s also an evil genius (with the emphasis on genius).”
■ Jimmy Kimmel says he loves it when Trump attacks him by name.
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg: Don’t let a scammer sign up for your online Social Security account before you do.
■ A cybersecurity expert explains how TikTok’s risks differ from Facebook, Pokemon-GO and even your phone itself.
■ In “a stunning development in American news media,” two of the country’s biggest newspaper chains are cutting ties with the backbone of U.S. journalism, The Associated Press.
■ “Let’s talk about pooping your guts, the best fake sleep of your life, and having no memory of getting a camera pushed up your butt.” Fresh off her third colonoscopy, Culture Study columnist Anne Helen Petersen recommends one for everyone over 45—a subject on which Dave Barry’s 2008 column remains timeless.
■ Esquire peeks behind the curtain on an upcoming movie dramatizing the run-up to the 1975 debut of “Saturday Night Live.”
You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.
Minced Words
On this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast, Austin Berg, Cate Plys, Brandon Pope and I joined host John Williams to discuss the results of Tuesday’s voting, the Occupy Grant Park movement led by city officials and Donald Trump’s “bloodbath” remark. Pope said “we live in a hamster wheel at this point,” but you’ll have to listen to find out why, and find out how Post Sex Nachos figures into the discussion. Watch the above pre-roll video to see what caused me to pick up my violin. Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.
Quotables
His name is Bond. Can’t Make Bond. — @TheSGTJoker
How did normal people in a civilized country like the Germany of the 1930s become a hate-fueled mass movement capable of atrocities? Americans used to ask that question, but now Republicans have showed us how it can happen. — Mark Jacob
In our nation’s 246 year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election and he lost big. I know it, he knows it and deep down I think most Republicans know it. — former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney in 2022
The same people bitching about Biden forgiving student loans are the exact same people wanting me to pay for their kids to go to fancy private schools. — @wcbuecker
Re: Tweets
In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, the Visual Tweet Madness bracket tournament is ongoing. Check out rounds 1-3 and rounds 4-7. Become a paid subscriber to vote.
All are welcome and encouraged to vote in the next round of Tweet Madness 2024, the Tweet 16. Here are the pairings:
Doctor: Your parents were in a car accident. Me: How are they? Doctor: They're extremely critical. Me: So they're awake, that's good. — @Browtweaten
vs.
If you burned CDs for the car so your original copies wouldn't get scratched, it's time to schedule your colonoscopy. — @benboven1
A week ago my mother-in-law began reading “The Exorcist.” She said it was the most evil book she ever read. So evil she couldn’t finish it. She took it to the beach and threw it off the pier. I went and bought another copy, ran it under the tap and left it on the bedside table in her room. — @deelomas
vs.
Therapist: Anyways… Me: “Anyways” isn’t a word. You mean “anyway.” Therapist: ANYWAY… we were talking about your difficulty making friends. — various
Sometimes I have to remind myself to get off the internet, go outside and judge people in person. — @Tbone7219
vs.
When the inventor of the USB stick dies they’ll gently lower the coffin, then pull it back up, turn it the other way, then lower it again. — @Cluedont
It's been 6 months since I joined the gym and no progress. I'm going there in person tomorrow to see what's really going on. — @_CakeBawse
vs.
When I was a kid you could go to a store with just a dollar and come home with four comic books, three candy bars, two packs of trading cards, a bag of chips and a cold drink. Now they have cameras everywhere. — Unknown
Once you hit a certain age, life is just a delicate balance of trying to stay awake and trying to fall asleep while slowly getting worse at both. — unknown
vs.
Ordered new coats for my kids and for convenience I had them shipped directly to their school’s lost and found section. — @Chhapiness
One of the best examples of someone posing a question that they already know the answer to is the WeightWatchers website asking me if I accept cookies. — @Pundamentalism
vs.
I love when my husband says, “correct me if I’m wrong,” like I would pass up that opportunity. — @MumOfTw0
Me: it's not about how many times you fall, it's about how many times you get back up. Cop: That's not how field sobriety tests work. — @HenpeckedHal
vs.
Magic Johnson wasted the world's best porn name on a basketball career. — @MsMurfie
Friend: It sounds terrible, but sometimes I find myself disliking my own children. Me: Don't worry, that's really common. Friend: Really? Me: Yeah, everyone hates your kids. — @ItsAndyRyan
vs.
The main cause of immigration is that we're still a country where people want to go. But we're working on fixing that. — @InternetHippo
Vote here and come back next Thursday to consider the Elite Tweet 8.
Usage note: To me, “tweet” has become a generic term for a short post on social media.
For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.
Good Sports
It took them long enough, but the Hinsdale Township High School District 86 Board of Education has fired Hinsdale South boy’s basketball coach Michael Belcaster, the vindictive man who grotesquely abused his authority to take revenge on a star athlete, cutting him from the team not because he wasn’t easily good enough — he had been an all-conference selection the two previous seasons — or because he’d violated any team rules, but, quite evidently, because the boy had had the temerity to file a complaint about Belcaster’s predecessor, a friend of his. (See “Fire Belcaster” in PS 116 and “The appalling failure of Hinsdale South to fire its head basketball coach” in PS 125).
Loved this paragraph in the Associated Press story about the rise of women’s college hoops: “ESPN said it just saw the most watched women’s college basketball regular season in more than 15 years, with viewership up 37% on its platforms from last season. That doesn’t really even include the (Caitlin) Clark effect, as Iowa’s star wasn’t on the network much this season. Iowa's ratings on Fox Sports were the highest in a generation.”
The fact that the Bears could only get a future sixth-round draft pick for quarterback Justin Fields reflects expert consensus about his lack of potential to lead a team to the Super Bowl. Even if the team’s presumptive No. 1 draft pick Caleb Williams turns out to be a bust, the decision to move on from Fields is the right one.
“Basketball has too many timeouts, just play basketball.” — Scott Kennedy
To those who have asked, no, I don’t fill out a NCAA tournament bracket. Not anymore. I find that it can warp my rooting interests, which are always for Big Ten teams and, when they’re all eliminated, for teams from blue states.
Tune of the Week
I’m opening up Tune of the Week nominations in an effort to bring some newer sounds to the mix. I’ve asked readers to use the comments area for paid subscribers to leave nominations along with YouTube links and at least a few sentences explaining why the nominated song is meaningful or delightful to you. Today’s nomination is from Deni Mayer, 53, a Near North Side resident. He writes, “I'm still interested in new music and am as likely to go see a young band in a club full of 20-somethings as I am one from the era of my youth when I may be one of the younger ones there.” His nomination:
This is English singer-songwriter/troubadour Frank Turner. He's 42, and this song is from 2011 when he was around 30. He grew up listening to heavy metal music and joined a hardcore punk band when he was young. At some point in his early-mid 20s, someone gave him a copy of Bruce Springsteen's “Nebraska,” and it changed his musical direction. He now fuses punk and folk traditions, and a decent amount of his songs are sociopolitical. He's kind of the Millennial version of Billy Bragg. This is one of his best songs and a really fun video:
Consult the complete Tune of the Week archive!
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First time I had to go to the tissue box reading the PS. God bless Jayden.
I don't mind changing Columbus Drive, and we could argue about whether it's a little soon to be honoring Obama with streets and such, but if you are going to change a street name to Obama, I nominate Wabash. That way, Trump Tower's address would be 401 N. Obama Ave.