One year after her son was shot and killed at Euclid Beach Park in Cleveland, Ohio, Latisa Perryman faced the man who killed him and wondered why he still had the option of freedom.
Christopher Manning, 25, pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter, felonious assault, and attempted murder following a confrontation with Jarvis Perryman and other individuals. After a verbal argument, Manning allegedly pulled out a gun from his backpack and began shooting at Perryman and his two cousins at the park’s concession stand and pavilion. A 17-year-old victim at the scene suffered non-life-threatening injuries but was shot in both feet.
Due to Manning’s guilty plea and sentencing guidelines, the maximum sentence he could receive was 37 years, a decision that stunned Perryman’s mother.
“When you state 25 to 32, that means there’s no life sentence to that?” Perryman asked Judge Steven Gall before sentencing was handed down. “That’s not what I agreed to with Mr. Jeffrey [Schnatter]. I told him it had to be a life in there, because that’s — my son’s life is gone. Why would we do 25 to 32? How is that fair?”
Gall responded, “Nothing in this process is fair. There’s no sense of fairness. You’ll never walk out of this court with feeling like you won or got anything back. I could sentence him to death and you’re gonna feel the same terrible way you feel now.”
Perryman still said Manning needed to “pay” for killing her son.
“He should not be able to be out here free, walking around, enjoying anything in life. My son was 20 years old. He didn’t even get to enjoy his full 20 years,” she said.
As she read a victim impact statement, Latissa Perryman sobbed, anguished that Manning could not receive a life sentence while also pained about her son.
“I am standing here as a mother who is hurting in a way I never knew a person could hurt,” she said. “I never imagined my life would bring me in this courtroom having to speak about my child’s life being taken away. A mother is supposed to watch her child grow, see his dreams come true, see him become the man he was meant to be and one day see him become a father. I was robbed of all of those memories.”
She continued, “Since Christopher Manning took my son, Jarvis, from us, my family has been living with a pain that never goes away. Every day I wake up and I have to face the reality that my baby is gone. Some days I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep going. I feel like a part of me has left with him. I would give anything for just one more day with my son.”
