Woom Sing Tse.Photo: LEGAL HELP FIRM Facebook
Police who followed the community’s tips to arrest 23-year-old Alphonso Joyner later that day on charges of first-degree murder did not offer a motive or say whether the murder was a hate crime.
“I cannot say why this happened… sometimes people just do evil people things,” said Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy, reportsNBC Chicago.
The victim, Woom Sing Tse, a retired restaurateur, was shot 22 times, prosecutors revealed Thursday at a hearing where Joyner was denied bond, according to the outlet.
“Mr. Tse was a man who came to this country just with a few dollars in his pocket, and through hard work and a determined spirit, achieved the American dream,” Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference Wednesday announcing Joyner’s arrest.
The attack occurred about 12:30 p.m. near John C. Haines Elementary School, and was captured on surveillance footage that Brown credited for helping to speed the suspect’s arrest.
That footage shows Tse walking on 23rd Place as a blue car pulls up and someone inside the vehicle starts shooting in his direction, police said.
The first round missed Tse, who appears startled on the footage. A second burst of gunshots hit Tse, and as he fell to the ground, “this offender gets out of his vehicle, walks up to the sidewalk, stands over Mr. Tse and then immediately fires several more rounds into his body, causing his death,” Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said at the news conference.
Surveillance cameras and tips from the scene helped police quickly identify the vehicle, and Joyner was pulled over and arrested as he drove on the South Kennedy Expressway, police said in anews release.
In the car police found a gun with an extended magazine, and gunshot residue later was found on Joyner’s hands, Deenihan said.
Joyner previously had pleaded guilty to a gun charge, Deenihan said.
Alphonso Joyner.Chicago Police Department
In his retirement, Tse often walked to grab a newspaper or cup of coffee, and he played ping-pong with friends several times a week at the Chinese Community Center, where those friends expected him to show up Tuesday, his longtime friend Tony Wong toldCBS Chicago.
“He’s very friendly,” Wong said. “He loves to make friends with everybody.”
But violence has undercut the neighborhood’s safety, he said. “Chinatown is not a safe place now. A lot of people robbing people and breaking into houses,” Wong said. “We feel pretty scared too.”
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Police credited the neighborhood’s awareness for helping to find the alleged killer so quickly.
“The real break in this case was almost immediate,” police Cmdr. Don Jerome said at the news conference. “The Chinatown Community Watch called me on my cellphone within minutes of this incident occurring.”
Grace Chan McKibben, executive director of the Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community, described Chicago’s Chinatown as “a very close-knit community.”
“The Chinatown Chamber of Commerce has maintained a number of security cameras for a while, and we work very closely with police,” she said at the police news conference. “Safety is often cited as one of the most important issues that the community cares about, so whenever something like this happens, it’s devastating. But we’re glad in his case it was solved quickly.”
Police Superintendent Brown said: “Members of the community immediately called police with information about the offender and provided surveillance video that helped identify him. They helped us bring this offender to justice.”
“Though the family is grieving Mr. Tse’s tragic loss,” he said, “we hope that this arrest and these charges that were brought bring them a measure of closure to know that the person responsible has been taken off the streets of Chicago.”
In addition to felony first-degree murder, Joyner is charged with aggravated use of a deadly weapon and possession of a revoked firearms registration. An attorney for him was not identified.
source: people.com
