Corey Morgan is charged with first-degree murder in the fatally shooting of 9-year-old Tayshawn Lee.
Advertisement
The victim, Tyshawn Lee, was gunned down November 2 in what police say was a targeted gang shooting.
Prosecutors allege Morgan was intent on settling the score after an October shooting killed his brother and injured his mother in a months-long gang feud.
“They’re going to be obliterated”. He declared, “That gang just signed its own death warrant”.
Even in a city numb to gun violence after more than 450 homicides this year alone, Tyshawn’s killing horrified the community.
“This is a crime that shook our city”, city police superintendant Garry Mccarthy told reporters. “If you have a monster willing to assassinate a 9-year-old child, what else is that person willing to do?” Police have been investigating whether Tracey Morgan, like his brother a reputed member of the Terror Dome faction of the Black P Stones, was followed by a rival gang member who also attended the meeting in a Chatham church. Bond was set at $1 million, but Morgan was released after posting $100,000.
Morgan will appear at the Leighton Criminal Court Building Friday afternoon for a bond hearing, Daly said.
He said the boy’s killers approached him in a park where he was playing basketball with friends, spoke with him, and then walked him off into the alley.
Police would not be drawn in detail as to what Lee’s father – an alleged gang member – had done to provoke the men who retaliated by murdering his son. He also had bullet wounds on his hands and back.
McCarthy said the three men’s precise roles were still under investigation, but that all were members of the same gang. He was arrested and charged in June 2014 with unlawful use of a weapon, but has pleaded not guilty to that charge.
Another suspect has been arrested and a third is being sought, he added, predicting that further charges would be brought in the case.
McCarthy said Friday that the two guns recovered during the recent arrest of Morgan on a weapons offense did not match the casings recovered at the scene of Tyshawn’s killing.
Updated 12:00 p.m.: Police claim to other men are responsible for Lee’s death, and one is in custody on unrelated charges. McCarthy called on the man, whose photo was released, to turn himself in.
Advertisement
“Quite frankly, in a heinous crime like this, he’s probably better off if we catch than somebody else”, he said.
