Family of 12-year-old killed sues Department of Corrections

Quick Facts: 

• 12-year-old Alajawan Brown killed by Curtis Walker in 2010.
• Walker was a violent felon on Department of Corrections supervision.
• Suit says DOC should have better supervised Walker.
• Suit seeks compensation; specific amount not listed.

The family of a 12-year-old boy killed in 2010 is suing the Washington State Department of Corrections, saying the state failed to protect the public from the killer.
 
Violent felon Curtis Walker shot Alajawan Brown in 2010, confusing him with a man who'd been in a gunfight moments before.
 
As Alajawan lay dying on the asphalt of a 7-Eleven parking lot, someone stole his football cleats that the 12-year-old had saved for and had just bought at a nearby Walmart. Alajawan was a block from his home when he was killed.
 
Walker was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison. According to the lawsuit, a Department of Corrections officer was told before Brown's shooting death that Walker had assaulted a woman while armed and that he was also selling drugs.
 
The suit by Alajawan's family says immediate action should have been taken by DOC, but was not. The action, the suit claims, would have prevented Alajawan's death.
 
The suit seeks compensation, but does not specify a specific amount.

A year after Alajawan's death, his parents, Ayanna and Louis Brown, had plaques made for several people who helped them during the first year without their son.
 
They gave those plaques to the deputies and the responders who cared for their son, also also thanked several business owners, including the sports photography business that gave them photos of their late son that they initially couldn't afford.
 
Food and coffee for the ceremony was provided by Titu Sarai, who owns the 7-Eleven where Brown was randomly killed. The Browns thanked him and gave Sarai a plaque, too.
 
"We want to publicly thank everybody who has been a part of our lives over this past year," Ayanna Brown said that day in April 2011. "There are some things that we were trying to get accomplished and we just simply wouldn't have been able to do it if it wouldn't have been for those people."

Want to talk about the news of the day? Watch free streaming video on the KIRO 7 mobile app and iPad app, and join us here on Facebook.

KIRO