Reward Grows As Neighbors Look For Answers After Murder Of 9-Year-Old Boy
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Dozens of volunteers canvassed the Auburn Gresham neighborhood today, near where nine-year-old Tyshawn Lee was shot and killed Monday afternoon.
Debra Butler was among them. She lost her son Jeffrey to gun violence in 2011.
"I'm glad I'm strong enough to be here and help. My heart is heavy right now. This is my daughter's friend's son. They are the same age. They grew up together," Butler said fighting back tears.
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Police say the victim was found fatally wounded in an alley near 80th and Damen. He had been shot multiple times in the upper body.
Father Michael Pfleger gathered the group at the corner of 80th and Damen.
"What kind of an individual shoots bullets into a nine-year-old baby?" he said. "Multiple shots. That's not a drive-by, that's not a spray of bullets, that's not an accidental shooting. That's an execution. Somebody executed a baby in the streets of Chicago yesterday."
The community activist says there used to be street codes in the city.
"There used to be lines that were drawn," Pfleger said. "You didn't shoot and kill anybody's mother, you didn't shoot their grandmother, you did not shoot children. If you did, the street would take care of you. You couldn't go to prison if you had killed a child and not expect some retaliation, but that line has been removed. We are here to say we are putting the line back."
Sabrina Davis handed out fliers with reward information to passing cars along 79th Street.
"I live around the corner form here so it hits close to home and I have a new baby. It's sick," she said. "Gloves are off now, Kids are fair game? That's horrible."
A memorial is forming in the alley where Tyshawn was shot and killed. He was a fourth grader at Scott Joplin Elementary School.
The reward for information leading to an arrest is now up to $20,000.
Chicago Police haven't said whether the boy was targeted or if he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"A coward kills a nine-year-old kid? What have we become in Chicago?" said Pfleger.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel had an emotional response to the murder of the nine-year-old boy just doors from his grandmother's home in the Gresham neighborhood.
Surrounded by reporters at an unrelated event near Midway Airport, Mayor Emanuel said he believes fundamentally in the goodness of human nature but he says there is evil in the world and hopes whoever killed Tyshawn Lee never sees freedom or daylight again.
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"I think anybody that knows who this is, you don't have a financial reward, you have a moral responsibility," Emanuel said. "This person is not an individual. They are not a human being because when you do what you've done to a nine year old, there's a place for you and there is no humanity in that place."
Anyone with information is asked to contact Chicago Detectives at 312-747-8271 or Saint Sabine Church at 773-483-4300.
