Corey Morgan Charged in Brutal Killing of 9-Year-Old Tyshawn Lee

Chicago Police Superintendent Gary McCarthy identified shooting suspect Corey Morgan of Lansing, Ill, charging him with first degree murder. Morgan was released after posting his $100,000 bond. He was arrested on an unrelated gun charge and was released on bail earlier this week.

Morgan is expected to appear in court for a bond hearing Friday afternoon. McCarthy said Tyshawn’s death was the latest in at least three murders tied to strife between two gangs. The Morgans’ mother was also shot in the arm during the attack. Corey Morgan, 27, has been charged with first-degree murder.

The fourth-grader was lured from a playground into an alley just doors from his home and fatally shot in the side of his head.

Police said the death could be attributed to two gangs fighting and retaliating against one another for months.

Regardless, McCarthy characterized Friday’s announcement about Morgan’s arrest as “good news” that follows a horrific killing. Police know that these three are involved with the killing of Lee, but just who pulled the trigger of the gun, who drove the vehicle and who acted as look-out, are the type of details that the police are working on.

“Tyshawn Lee was murdered in probably the most abhorrent, cowardly, unfathomable crime that I’ve witnessed in 35 years of policing”, McCarthy told reporters earlier this month as police searched for tips.

Like a number of other US cities, Chicago has seen a rise in violence this year.

Gangs battle over turf and the right to sell drugs in what’s known as the most unsafe neighborhood, Auburn-Gresham, where Tyshawn resided and was gunned down. Some media outlets have reported that the boy was on his way to his grandmother’s house. But they do believe that he was singled out, not for anything he did but because of his father.

At a press conference Friday, Chicago Police Supt. “It’s a 9-year-old boy that was targeted and executed”. People are calling this execution death of a little boy a “new low” for violence riddled Chicago. “A baby was assassinated right behind us in the alley”.

Authorities say one concern was the “code of silence”: citizens’ unwillingness to trust, and talk to, police.

Black Lives Matter activists blocked entrances to stores in the city’s high-end shopping district on Black Friday to draw attention to Laquan McDonald’s death. “This was very clearly not a case of “no-snitching” but there was a lot of fear”. On Nov. 2 they were driving around when they spotted Tyshawn at Dawes Park. and one of the men lured him into the alley where they shot him, Canellis said. Edwards is from the Chicago area, McCarthy said. He had an iPhone charger and a watch on him when he died, but no phone, the report said.

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 a year ago.