The parents of 12-year-old Alajawan Brown are suing the state Department of Corrections, claiming the convicted felon who murdered him 4 1/2 years ago wasn’t properly supervised.
The lawsuit was filed Nov. 24 in King County Superior Court by Louis and Ayanna Brown of Skyway; as of Wednesday, the state had not been served with the complaint, according to a spokeswoman for the state Attorney General’s Office.
No damages were specified in the lawsuit. The Brown family filed a tort claim against the corrections department in early September, which asked for $5 million in damages; it was denied on Sept. 24 by the Attorney General’s Office.
Alajawan was shot in the back on April 29, 2010, by Curtis John Walker, who mistook him for a gang member. Walker had just been involved in a gang shootout at an apartment complex near the 7-11 store on Martin Luther King Jr. Way where he gunned down Alajawan.
Walker was 36 when he was convicted of first-degree murder with a firearms enhancement in February 2012 and sentenced on March 22, 2012, to 50 years in prison.
It was at the sentencing that the Browns, after following the investigation closely for two years and sitting through the three-week trial, learned the extent of Walker’s criminal background and that he had violated his supervision by selling drugs and possessing firearms, according to the lawsuit.
It was the first time they had reason to believe the state corrections department “had missed an opportunity to arrest Walker and get him off the streets before he had a chance to kill their son,” according to the lawsuit.
“DOC failed miserably in its supervision of this dangerous offender,” the Browns’ attorney, Nathan P. Roberts, said in an interview Tuesday. “Had DOC done its job properly, he would have been in jail, and Alajawan would still be alive today.”
A spokeswoman for the state corrections department declined to discuss the case because of the lawsuit.
Ayanna Brown also declined to comment, referring questions to Roberts.
Finally recuperated from their stress, the Browns contacted an attorney in March 2014 to look into the possibility the state corrections department also bore responsibility for Alajawan’s murder, according to the lawsuit.
“It was one thing to know that their son’s murder was a senseless act of violence; it’s another thing to know it should have been prevented by law enforcement, who instead turned a blind eye,” Roberts said in an interview.
Norah M. West, a spokeswoman for the state corrections department, declined to comment specifically on Walker’s terms of probation.
Currently, 16,563 offenders statewide are actively supervised by the Department of Corrections; nearly two-thirds of those offenders are assessed as higher risk to reoffend, according to West.
The state currently actively supervises 2,843 offenders in King County, she said. According to the lawsuit, the corrections department classified Walker at the highest risk level because of drugs, violence and gang activity. He was being supervised for unlawful possession of a firearm and possession of a controlled substance.
Typically, higher-risk offenders receive a minimum of three or four contacts per month, in field offices and at home as well as at work or school, according to West. Some have court-ordered requirements for substance abuse, mental health or domestic violence treatment.
“We hold offenders accountable, and when they violate their court-ordered or DOC-ordered supervision conditions, they will spend up to three days in jail for low-level violations (positive drug tests, failing to comply with treatment) and up to 30 days for high-level violations (absconding from supervision, more than five low-level violations, etc.),” she wrote in an email.
Roberts, the Brown’s attorney, said statistics show that “good supervision is highly effective at preventing future crime; but when supervision is weak, offenders invariably return to their old ways and crimes are committed.”
While most corrections officers do a “good job” managing caseloads, “when the system breaks down there needs to be accountability,” he said.
According to the lawsuit, a concerned citizen reported on April 17, 2010, that Walker may have threatened his girlfriend with a weapon. Had corrections officers, with police backup, gone to Walker’s house, they would have found guns and weapons, a violation of his probation, according to the lawsuit.
He then would have been in jail and not at the gang battle that led to Alajawan’s murder, according to the lawsuit.
The Browns’ lawsuit maintains the state didn’t make the required contacts with Walker and only received a “slap on the wrist” when urinalysis tests showed the presence of drugs, including cocaine.
“Because Defendant DOC was not doing its job and was not supervising Curtis Walker in a meaningful way, he was free to carry on in his ‘gangster’ lifestyle, which involved selling drugs and carrying weapons, and which posed an extremely high risk of deadly violence to the community,” according to the lawsuit.
Roberts will now prepare the case for trial. The Brown family will present its claims to a King County jury on Dec. 21, 2015, if the case goes forward, he said.
The jury would be asked to award monetary damages to the Browns for the loss of their son, and to Alajawan’s estate for economic damages and pre-death terror, pain, and suffering, according to Roberts.
“The primary purpose of the lawsuit is to shed light on DOC’s failures so that the mistakes in this case are not repeated,” Roberts said.
