Chicago father convicted of attempted murder in shootings to avenge 2015 slaying of 9-year-old son

CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago father has been convicted of attempting to kill three people to avenge the slaying of his 9-year-old son who was lured from a playground into an alley with the promise of a juice box by rival gang members in 2015 and shot.

A jury deliberated several hours Wednesday before finding Pierre Stokes, 33, guilty of attempted murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and a gun charge, according to the Chicago Tribune.

He was accused of shooting and wounding the girlfriend of one of the men responsible for his son’s death and her two adult nephews in 2016.

Prosecutors have said the shooting was the result of a feud between the Bang Bang Gang/Terror Dome faction of the Black P Stones and the Killa Ward faction of the Black Gangster Disciples, which Stokes allegedly belonged to.

According to prosecutors, Dwright Boone-Doty and Corey Morgan believed Stokes’ faction was responsible for an October 2015 shooting that killed Morgan’s 25-year-old brother and wounded his mother. Initially, the plan was to kill Tyshawn Lee’s grandmother to send a message to Stokes before the boy was targeted, prosecutors said.

Morgan, Boone-Doty and Kevin Edwards were charged in the boy’s slaying. Morgan was convicted and sentenced to 65 years in prison. Doty was convicted and sentenced to 90 years, while Edwards, the getaway driver, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in exchange for a 25 years in prison.

Prosecutors alleged during a 2016 bond hearing that Doty told other inmates that he shot Tyshawn and considered cutting off the boy’s fingers and ears, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Stokes later approached Morgan’s girlfriend, Robyn Matthews, at a South Side gas station and shot her and her nephews.

Assistant State’s Attorney Melanie Matias told the jury during closing arguments in Stokes’ trial that “vigilante justice is not justice.”

But Assistant Public Defender Celeste Addyman argued that saying Matthews’ shooting “is a retaliatory shooting for Tyshawn’s death doesn’t make sense.”

“This happens four or five months later,” she said.