Mourners Bid Farewell To 9-Year-Old Murder Victim Tyshawn Lee
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Loved ones said goodbye Tuesday morning to a 9-year-old boy who was shot and killed in what police called a gang-related execution.
Tyshawn Lee's funeral got underway at 11 a.m. at Saint Sabina Church. Mourners began filing in around 10 a.m., to pay their final respects.
Tyshawn was shot and killed last week in an alley near 80th Street and Damen Avenue. Police have said he was lured into the alley, and executed, because of his father's gang ties, and a recent series of shootings between rival gangs.
Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy has called Tyshawn's slaying "probably the most abhorrent, cowardly, unfathomable crime" he has seen in 35 years in law enforcement.
Rev. Michael Pfleger told the packed church they were meeting at the intersection of pain and anger.
"This is the face and the reality of evil," he said.
Mourners remembered the 4th grader at Joplin Elementary School as a typical child who loved playing basketball, and dreamed of playing in the NBA so he could buy his mom a new house.
"Tyshawn was creative, charming, helpful, and had an imagination out of this world," Joplin Elementary principal Alene Mason said.
Friends and loved ones said Tyshawn loved fried chicken, Sour Patch Kids candy, and playing video games on his Xbox.
One of Tyshawn's classmates brought a basketball to the funeral, along with a note saying he'll be missed.
"Tyshawn, my friend, I am going to miss you. You will always be my friend. See you later. Demetrius. Hope you like your ball. Bye friend," Demetrius Alexander had written on the basketball.
His death has affected not only the Auburn-Gresham community where he lived, but the entire nation. Some have called his slaying a new low for the city of Chicago.
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Pfleger said there is a mixture of pain and anger over Tyshawn's murder.
"The community and everybody out here has got to be enraged. There was a day when, if you killed a child, you had to be in solitary confinement in prison, because you would not make it. Now, all of a sudden, this is going to become acceptable? No, it's not going to become acceptable. If it is, then we lost it as a city," he said.
Pfleger said there would be no winners in street justice, just a continuation of an endless cycle of violence. He said a lot of people know who shot Tyshawn, and they should not be able to live with themselves.
"How does somebody, what kind of individual – and that's what people who know the information; it's not just one person, a bunch of people know what happened, who it is. How do you live with yourself knowing that a person who could put bullets into the body of a 9-year-old, and walk away from that, and be alright? How do you let that kind of person walk the streets?" he said.
Pfleger urged the community to end the code of silence, and turn in Tyshawn's killer. He noted no expense was spared to find who killed Fox Lake Police Lt. Joe Gliniewicz, when in the end it turned out to be a suicide.
"Our children are just as important as a cop in Fox Lake," he said.
Tyshawn's father, Pierre Stokes, described by police as a known gang member, has been criticized for not cooperating with the police investigation, but he has
"If I ever found out, I would literally walk to the police myself and say it on national TV, 'That man killed my son,'" Stokes said.
Police were hoping to find Tyshawn's killer before rival gang members do, and have said they are close to making an arrest.
