Nov. 18--A man picked up on an alleged gun offense was being questioned Tuesday by Chicago police detectives in connection with the slaying of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee, law enforcement sources told the Tribune.
The same man was already questioned about Tyshawn's death at Area South police headquarters Nov. 4, the sources said. He was released without being charged at that time.
The man, 27, was arrested Monday after leaving a hotel in southwest suburban Oak Lawn after Chicago police received a tip that he was in possession of guns, the sources said. Police confiscated two guns from him, according to the sources.
Police later filed unrelated charges of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon against the man. Records show he is a convicted felon who by law cannot possess firearms.
A second man, 21, arrested with the person of interest was also charged with the same weapons violations, according to court records.
Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, confirmed the individual was arrested on an unrelated gun charge and said the investigation into Tyshawn's slaying remains under investigation. Guglielmi declined further comment.
Tyshawn, a fourth-grader at Joplin Elementary School who loved to play basketball, was shot multiple times about 4:15 p.m. Nov. 2 in an alley near 80th Street and Damen Avenue in the Auburn Gresham community on Chicago's South Side. A basketball he always carried with him was found nearby.
McCarthy has called the slaying "probably the most abhorrent, cowardly, unfathomable crime" he had seen in his 35 years in law enforcement. McCarthy said police believe Tyshawn was killed because of his father's gang ties and a recent series of shootings between rival gangs.
Law enforcement sources have told the Tribune that the bloody conflict involves rival factions of two of Chicago's oldest gangs -- the Gangster Disciples and the Black P Stones. Police believe the Terror Dome faction of the Black P Stones targeted the child because his father, a convicted felon, reputedly belongs to the Gangster Disciples' Killa Ward faction.
Last month, a Killa Ward member was wounded and a teenage woman killed in a retaliatory shooting just days after a Terror Dome member was fatally shot and his mother wounded, according to police.
The Tribune was the first to interview Tyshawn's father, Pierre Stokes, after his son was killed. The day after the slaying, Stokes denied to the newspaper that anyone would have a motive to kill him, but if someone did, there was no reason to take it out on his son because he's out in the neighborhood all the time. If anyone wanted to harm him, he or she could find the opportunity, he said.
"I'm not hard to find," Stokes said.
Tyshawn's death is believed to be part of back-and-forth bloody feuding between Terror Dome and Killa Ward that has flared up since at least August, according to the sources.
Tracey Morgan, a parolee, was fatally shot Oct. 13 after leaving a "gang call-in" meeting, an anti-violence effort by Chicago police and other law enforcement. His mother, who was also in the vehicle, was wounded by the gunfire. Police were investigating if Morgan, a reputed member of Terror Dome, was followed by a rival gang member who also attended the meeting in a Chatham church.
Five days later, a member of the rival Killa Ward faction of the Gangster Disciples was wounded in a shooting near 78th and Honore streets in Auburn Gresham that also left 19-year-old Brianna Jenkins dead, according to police.
During his interview with the Tribune, Stokes did not talk specifically about whether he was a gang member but said he disagreed with what police have said about him. He also expressed frustration with police, saying investigators seemed more interested in him than in finding who fatally shot Tyshawn.
"They're more worried about me. Why are you worried about me, not the killer?" Stokes, 25, said earlier this month outside his residence in the Auburn-Gresham. "I'm not the killer. Worry about the killer."
But Stokes said he felt guilty that he was not at his son's side when he walked to his grandmother's house on the afternoon he was killed.
"To be honest, I feel bad," he said. "I feel like it's my fault."
jgorner@tribpub.com
dheinzmann@tribpub.com
Twitter @davidheinzmann
