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Four years ago, Tyshawn Lee was murdered execution style in a Chicago alley. You might think that this was just another shooting in Chicago, but there was something especially horrific about this execution.
It’s because Tyshawn was only nine years old.
Little Tyshawn was the victim of gang-banger vengeance for a violation of a gang code. Corey Morgan and Dwright Doty were members of the “Bang Bang Gang/Terror Dome” faction of the “Black P Stones.” On the other hand, Tyshawn’s father, Pierre Stokes, was a member of the “Killa Ward” faction of the “Gangster Disciples.” Unfortunately, poor little Tyshawn couldn’t choose his father.
Both gangs are rivals, and when Corey Morgan’s brother died and his mother was wounded in a gang shooting some weeks prior, he blamed the Killa Wards and Stokes. Apparently an unwritten gang code says that you don’t harm an innocent family member.
Thus, according to Assistant State’s Attorney George Canellis Jr:
“He allegedly said since his brother was killed and his mama was shot he was going to kill grandmas, mamas, kids and all.”
So when Morgan and Doty were out looking for Pierre Stokes, they spotted Tyshawn walking to his grandmother’s house. Doty talked to the boy and lured him into an alley, promising him a trip to the store. While Corey Morgan and another accomplice watched from a black SUV, Dwright Doty shot Tyshawn execution style. What’s more, he shot him multiple times, including once in the head.
Authorities claim that Tyshawn had defensive wounds on his arm, indicating he tried to ward off the attack. A bullet also ripped off part of his thumb.
On Tuesday, the trials of Doty and Morgan began in Chicago.
Now did Dwright Doty execute Tyshawn Lee with an AR-15? Or some other kind of “assault weapon?” You know, the kind of guns that Kamala Harris and tough guy Beto O’Rourke want to take from every American who owns one?
Credit: Michael Hogan/flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
Nope. Dwright Doty murdered Tyshawn Lee with a semi-automatic .40 caliber Smith & Wesson handgun. Plus, the gun was part of a straw purchase scheme between a New Mexico pawn shop and a man named Andre Williams. Williams, a friend of Corey Morgan’s brother Anthony, used a Walmart money transfer for the S & W and a second gun. The guns arrived in Anthony Morgan’s mail shortly thereafter.
Even worse, it appears that this was part of a gun-running scheme that Andre Williams ran for over a year, between February 2015 and May 2016.
Anthony Morgan pleaded guilty to gun-running in January of 2019. He also admitted that he provided guns to the Terror Dome gang.
“We a gang. We were gangbanging. I provided the guns for the neighborhood because (I had) the connect.”
Straw purchases, of course, are illegal. But the much-maligned NRA warns that not only are straw purchases against the law, they’re also one of the main ways that criminals get their guns. On top of that, a 2017 report found that most guns used in Chicago crime are straw purchases. Sixty percent of them come from out-of-state, with 20% from neighboring Indiana.
Do progressives think that their beloved gun legislation would stop criminals from behaving, well, like criminals? Would any sort of legislation have stopped the execution of Tyshawn Lee?
Moreover, what gun laws would eliminate the depravity occupying the souls of Corey Morgan and Dwright Doty? Because what sort of monster would shoot a nine-year-old boy in the head? That sounds like the stuff of Nazi Germany, or of any Communist tyranny — take your pick.
The fact is that the execution of Tyshawn Lee doesn’t fit the narrative for progressive Democrats and their media lapdogs who want to strangle the rights of legal gun owners. Nor does it fit the worldview of the wokesters who insist that black lives matter. Those black lives matter only if they can blame the police or a “privileged” white person — especially if that person is conservative.
So while the trial of Corey Morgan and Dwright Doty may make national news now, once it’s over, it will be forgotten. And the media and Democrats will forget that a little boy named Tyshawn Lee ever existed.
Featured image: elsebjgmailcom/pixabay/cropped/free for use.
Mad Celt says: Beto wouldn’t know all of this. His personal staff is not allowed to speak to him until he ascends the recieving throne beneath the canopy of cloth of gold and the stewart bangs his staff three times. The trumpets sound and Beto is prepared to be a regular guy.
GWB says: Would any sort of legislation have stopped the execution of Tyshawn Lee?
You are right in saying that no new legislation would have stopped this. And I know that you know that enforcement of current law is what’s needed.
Rant mode:
And enforcement is one of the two bits that really makes this sort of thing possible on the scale to which it exists today. (You briefly touched on the other when you mentioned ‘depravity’ – changing the morals of society.)
Quite simply, if murder (1st Degree) were always punished with a moderately swift death sentence, a lot would stop. If you convicted people of Felony Murder (someone dies because you’ve committed a crime), and sentenced them to at least life without possibility of parole, even more would stop.
It’s more than simply enforcing the laws on the books and actually charging people with the crimes they’ve actually committed. You have to also actually punish those people according to the crime.
Government has got to stop treating the justice system as therapeutic. It is there to punish evildoers. Punishment works wonders for discouraging recidivism and deterring that first criminal act (despite all the hand-wringing from progressive psycho- and socio-logists). In the long run, your prisons would be less full, though more full in the short term.
You have to actually hold individuals responsible for their actions. Without this, not a single law you pass will make any difference. If these two people receive anything less than the death penalty, delivered in a semi-timely fashion, it will simply encourage more of the same.
Let’s make sure we beat up on this angle when we talk about “no new law”. And not just “enforce the ones you have”, but that next step further to “no plea deals”* and “no more ‘but he was turning his life around'”** and no more “we have to let him go because prisons are full.”
(* I’m willing to accept the occasional one if it means you actually convict and imprison some dude higher up.)
(** That’s what commutation and pardons are for – cases where the law is an ass.)
/Rant mode
Kim Hirsch says: It’s more than simply enforcing the laws on the books and actually charging people with the crimes they’ve actually committed. You have to also actually punish those people according to the crime.
To quote Shakespeare: “Ay, there’s the rub.” Chicago is notorious for its judges giving out low or sometimes no bail at all. Sometimes they just consign perps to ankle monitors, which have been foiled.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot — who famously got into a Twitter snit with Ted Cruz over Chicago crime — has been at odds with Cook Co. Board President Toni Preckwinkle and her notorious protegé State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. They encourage light sentences, which causes hell in communities. Lightfoot is a former federal prosecutor, so she’s inclined to lock up criminals, but she’s also a Democrat and resented Republican Cruz from pointing out the dreadful crime statistics in the city. Rock and a hard place for her. I wrote about her feud with Cruz a week or two ago.
Then there’s the dismal homicide clearance rate in Chicago — right now about 9.5%. Some members of black communities hate cops, others are afraid to say anything. Either way it’s a victory for gang bangers, and a losing situation for the honest folks living in high crime areas. And then innocent kids like Tyshawn die.
GWB says: Oh, two further bits of info: What happened to Mr Williams? Did he get convicted of “gun running”? Yes, though he has not yet been sentenced according to the article. How much you want to bet he gets something comfy?
Also, what happened to Anthony Morgan? He plead, and is only doing 4 years. (The sentence goes up to 10 years and a quarter million dollar fine.)
Both of these plea deals allow them to evade more serious charges (like possibly Felony Murder or Conspiracy).
Also, you missed that the third guy in the murder, the getaway driver, one Mr Edwards, also plead to 1st Degree Murder and got 25 years to life.
Scott says: Don’t forget (I know you didn’t) always charging the max gun crimes, felon in possession, straw purchase, etc. Not giving any plea deals on those charges, and always going for max time on them. That would have an impact as well. And if they have any gang affiliation at all, hit em with RICO too…
Alpheus says: There’s a flip side to this: if we aren’t going to enforce these laws, why should we have them in the first place?
As I have thought about this issue over the years, I have made a simple conclusion: that we should do away with background checks, and with making it illegal for felons and insane people to have guns. If a person is truly a danger to himself or others — whether that person is criminal or insane — then that person needs constant supervision. One the person is released back into the wild, we are basically saying “We don’t need to supervise this person any more.”
The fact is, no matter how hard we try to enforce the law, people intending to do evil *will* do evil. They don’t need guns to do it — there’s plenty of evil all around us. Would Tyshawn’s death have been any less tragic, had he been stabbed, or strangled, or burned alive, or stomped and kicked to death, or drowned? Yet when four *adults* plot to kill a 9-year-old, there’s nothing stoping *any* of them from using any of these methods. Using a gun was only a *minor* convenience.
In other words, the evil and the tragedy is gang violence, and not the particular way Tyshawn was murdered.
And what’s also really sad is that, even to the extent that this is in the radar of gun “safety” gun grabber advocates, is the fact that Tyshawn died by bullets. Had he been murdered by any other method, they wouldn’t give one darn.
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