One of three suspects in the slaying of Tyshawn Lee engaged the 9-year-old in conversation while the boy was on a swing at a play lot, then lured him to a nearby alley and gunned him down, Cook County prosecutors and Chicago police said Friday.
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This photo provided by the Chicago Police Department shows Corey…
Chicago was called the murder capital of the United States after it registered 503 homicides in 2012, more than any other city.
Tyshawn was hit in his back, forearm and head, and part of his thumb was shot off as if he was raising his hand to block the shots, Canellis said.
Police, who did not publicly identify the suspect, have said the crime was linked to a rivalry between Lee’s father, a suspected gang member, and another group. “It was an act of barbarism, the assassination of a 9-year-old child as a gang retaliation to get back at his father”.
Authorities also issued an arrest warrant on first-degree murder charges for the third suspect, Kevin Edwards, 22, the report says. Judge Chiampas called Morgan a peril to the general population and said the night Tyshawn was killed, he was a predator getting prey. Police say one of them is in custody on an unrelated charge.
Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said the suspect, 27-year-old Corey Morgan, is a gang member with an extensive criminal history.
“We’re going to go in and destroy that gang”, he said. Morgan was released on that charge after posting $100,000 bond, but arrested again on the murder charge Friday.
The US city is notorious for gun crime, but Tyshawn Lee’s November 2 death managed to horrify a Chicago already reeling from more than 450 murders this year.
Detectives have not recovered the murder weapon, but they believe only one person fired because all the spent bullet casings were from a single gun. “I can tell you this: They are going to be obliterated”.
The boy’s dad, Pierre Stokes, denies gang ties and says he does not know why anyone would have a vendetta against him.
Asked about Stokes’ cooperation with authorities, McCarthy said he wasn’t being helpful, ” not at all”.
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The arrest was announced on the same day that activists protested over the shooting death of a black teenager by a white Chicago patrolman in October 2014 that was filmed on a police dashboard camera.
