‘Cowardly’ execution of boy, 9, in Chicago

A 9-year-old Chicago boy who was fatally shot this week was “lured” from a park into an alley and executed because of his father’s alleged gang connections, police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said in a crime he described as among the most “unfathomable” of his 35 years in policing.

Tyshawn Lee, an elementary school student, was walking to his grandmother’s house when he was shot in the head and back last Monday in a neighbourhood alley on the city’s South Side.

McCarthy told reporters that the killing was the result of two gangs fighting, potentially in a string of retaliatory events dating back months. He said the boy’s father is not co-operating with police.