Arrest in Chicago killing of Tyshawn Lee

A man has been arrested and charged in the gang-related murder of a nine-year-old boy who was lured from a park into an alley earlier this month, Chicago Police said on Friday, adding that at least two others were also involved.

McCarthy said two other men, including one jailed on an unrelated gun charge, also are suspected in the death of Tyshawn Lee, who was shot in an alley near his grandmother’s home on November 2.

McCarthy said police received “an very bad lot of intelligence from the community”, unlike in other cases in which people have been unwilling to come forward.

With recent rival gang shootings, police believe that Tyshawn was lured into the alley and executed due to his father Pierre Stokes’ gang ties. He was shot in the head and suffered several graze wounds.

McCarthy has called Tyshawn’s slaying “probably the most abhorrent, cowardly, unfathomable crime” he has seen in 35 years in law enforcement.

Prosecutors say Cory Morgan (left) and Kevin Edwards planned the heinous murder of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee.

Meanwhile, marchers are expected to gather in Chicago’s city centre to protest against the police killing of Laquan McDonald, 17, by a white police officer previous year.

Tyshawn was a fourth-grader at Joplin Elementary School and loved to play basketball. McCarthy said that the police still needed to work out details of what happened next, such as who pulled the trigger and who drove the getaway auto.

“This is a crime that shook our city”, he told reporters. Morgan was back in court on Monday. Two of the men, who are believed to be involved in the death of Tyshawn Lee, are in custody and one is still at large.

But if someone did, there was no reason to take it out on his son because Stokes said he was out in the neighborhood all the time.

“We’re going to catch him”, said Chicago Police Supt.

Police had questioned Morgan two days after Tyshawn’s killing but released him.

The attorney who represented Morgan on the gun charges said that his client had been held in protective custody. Morgan then posted 10 percent of his bail in that case – or $100,000 – and was released. He was arrested and charged in June 2014 with unlawful use of a weapon, but has pleaded not guilty to that charge.