Just days after Dontel Jeffers’ foster mom was sentenced to prison for her part in his death, the boy’s mother was arrested after she allegedly shot off a handgun in her South End apartment and then dumped a cache of crack out her window as police responded.
“I don’t even know how to work it,” Crystal Claiborn, 26, said of the firearm she says she keeps “for self-protection,” after assuring officers she wasn’t attempting suicide, according to a report on the incident that happened just after 7 a.m. yesterday.
Claiborn claimed that while aiming the pistol toward her reflection in a bathroom mirror she accidentally pulled the trigger when the clip fell out, police said.
Last week, Corinne Stephen, the Dorchester foster mom of 4-year-old Dontel was placed with in February 2005 after Claiborn was deemed unfit, was sentenced to 8 to 12 years in state prison for involuntary manslaughter. Stephen, 26, did nothing to help Dontel as he was beaten and choked to death. To date, no one has been held accountable for the actual slaying.
Claiborn “loved Dontel in her own way,” a relative of the child, who requested anonymity, told the Herald. “She was a good lady, but when she got involved in (drugs) there was no way to say no to her.”
Claiborn, who pleaded not guilty in Boston Municipal Court to weapon and drug charges, was being held on $10,000 cash bail.
“She needs to learn a lesson,” the relative said. “Maybe this will shake her to say, ‘I’ve got to stop this, make a better life.’ ”
Among the evidence police seized from Claiborn’s home was a loaded Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol she allegedly confessed to stuffing in a couch and a 9mm clip packed with several more bullets. Police said Claiborn told them she keeps a gun for “self-protection.”
On the ground below her apartment police allegedly recovered a large bag of crack cocaine they believe Claiborn jettisoned after trying to block their entry.
A man who was in Claiborn’s home at the time of her arrest, Jermaine Good, 34, of Boston, also pleaded not guilty to weapon and drug charges and was ordered held on $10,000 cash bail.
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