Cops: Chicago Boy, 9, 'Lured' Into Alley, Killed

Police call murder 'unfathomable,' 'abhorrent'
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Nov 6, 2015 3:18 AM CST
Updated Nov 6, 2015 7:13 AM CST
Cops: Chicago Boy, 9, Killed as Gang Revenge
Pierre Stokes, left, the father of Tyshawn Lee, talks to a police officer Thursday near the scene where his son was killed earlier this week in Chicago.   (Brian Jackson/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

A 9-year-old Chicago boy who was fatally shot this week was "lured" from a park into an alley and executed because of his father's alleged gang connections, police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said Thursday of a crime he described as among the most "unfathomable" in his 35 years in policing. Tyshawn Lee, an elementary school student headed to his grandmother's house, was shot in the head and back Monday in a neighborhood alley on the city's South Side. McCarthy told reporters Thursday that the slaying was the result of two gangs fighting, potentially in a string of retaliatory events dating back months. He said the boy's father isn't cooperating with police.

McCarthy called it probably the "most abhorrent, cowardly, unfathomable crime that I've witnessed in 35 years of policing." "Everybody is sick; everybody is disgusted," he said. The child's father, Pierre Stokes, has disagreed with authorities' characterization of him. He hasn't talked about whether he's a gang member, but he says police have spent more time pursuing him than finding out who killed his son. "I answered every question they asked me," he told reporters Thursday. "They're not asking me questions that I know. I don't know the questions that they asked me." Authorities have said they know the gangs and individuals involved but need help assessing who did what. (An aspiring model was killed in a drive-by shooting on the same day Tyshawn was murdered.)

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