No Bail for Man Charged in Brazen ‘Execution’ of Woom Sing Tse in Chinatown
Woom Sing Tse had just left his home in Chinatown to go buy a newspaper on a chilly Tuesday afternoon when he was “executed” in broad daylight by a suspect who fired nearly two dozen shots in three separate volleys at the 71-year-old grandfather, according to Cook County prosecutors.
Alphonso Joyner, 23, was ordered held without bail during a court hearing Thursday following his arrest on charges including first-degree murder and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon stemming from the brazen shooting.
“Sometimes individuals just do evil things,” said Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy, who was unable to provide a motive for Tse’s killing during the hearing. “That’s the situation that we have here.”
The shooting, which was captured on multiple surveillance cameras, occurred at around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 200 block of West 23rd Place, just steps away from Haines Elementary school.
According to Murphy, Tse was walking eastbound on that street to get a paper when Joyner’s light blue Toyota sedan pulled through a nearby intersection and slowed down. Without warning, Joyner allegedly pointed a 9mm firearm with an extended magazine out of the driver’s side window and fired seven shots at Tse.
(WTTW News)
He then pulled forward slightly and fired six more rounds, according to Murphy, who said Tse can be seen on video covering his head and ears before his body “jerked” and he fell to the ground.
Tse could be heard on video yelling from the ground as Joyner allegedly parked his car in the opposite lane of traffic, got out and walked over to Tse, telling him “Hey, hey” before firing nine more shots at close range.
Murphy repeatedly described Joyner’s “calm” demeanor throughout the shooting and as he fled the scene in his vehicle.
Tse suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the left and right sides of his forehead, the top of his head, his right hip, the back of his neck and his right temple, according to Murphy, and was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital.
Joyner’s car was captured by several Chicago police license plate readers both before and after the shooting, Murphy said, and he was located and apprehended in the car by himself on the Kennedy Expressway approximately 66 minutes after and 11 miles away from the shooting.
Eighteen fired 9mm shell casings were recovered from the scene, and Joyner is alleged to have fired 22 total shots. Police said Joyner tested positive for gunshot residue following his arrest and a firearm — described by Murphy as a “ghost gun” compiled from parts of other guns and lacking a serial number — recovered from his car was matched to those shell casings from the scene.
When he was arrested, Joyner also appeared to be wearing the same clothes as the person seen on video shooting Tse.
During the hearing, Joyner’s public defender Scott Kozicki argued that it was unclear how many people were inside the vehicle at the time of the shooting and asked that his client be placed on electronic monitoring.
Judge Maryam Ahmad, however, rejected that request and denied bail, saying she found “overwhelming” evidence that Joyner presentes a “real and present threat and danger to the community.”
“The court can say, in summary, this was an execution that the people described,” she said.
Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown on Wednesday evening credited the Chinatown community with acting quickly to help officers apprehend Joyner.
He said locals immediately contacted police after the shooting with information about the suspect and the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce provided investigators with surveillance footage of the incident.
“They helped us bring this offender to justice,” Brown said.
Joyner is due back in court for a hearing Dec. 29.
Loop shooting: Chicago police searching for gunmen who killed 2 students outside of high school
CPD is investigating after a Chicago shooting killed teen students Robert Boston and Monterio Williams outside of Innovations High School in the Loop.
CHICAGO (WLS) — Two teenage boys were shot and killed while walking out of a high school Friday afternoon in the Loop, Chicago police said.
As two families and a community mourn, Chicago police have continued to search for the gunmen responsible for the brazen daylight ambush.
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It appeared to be business as usual on Saturday, just a day after the boys were gunned down in front of their downtown high school.
A Chicago shooting killed two teenage students exiting Innovations High School near Washington and Wabash in the Loop Friday, police said.
Many of the bullet-riddled windows have been boarded up following the slaying of 16-year-old Robert Boston and 17-year-old Monterio Williams.
Friends said the boys knew each other and so did their families. Community activist Andrew Holmes said the boys’ mothers are devastated by their loss.
“I talked to her. She’s a very praying woman. She believes in justice, and she believes the Chicago Police Department is going to solve this case,” Holmes said.
Investigators said both teens were shot and killed Friday afternoon near Wabash and Washington streets as they left school with a group of friends.
The teens were students at Chicago Public Schools charter school Innovations High School. It is an alternative school servicing 450 academically-challenged and troubled students.
That’s when witnesses said a dark-colored car and a dark-colored SUV pulled up, and masked gunmen got out and opened fire.
Authorities said while some of the attackers got away in the vehicles, at least two of them ran away.
The wounded students were rushed to an area hospital, where they were both pronounced dead.
Friends said Williams was only two weeks away from celebrating his 18th birthday and had plans to attend trade school after graduation.
A statement posted on social media by the teens’ school reads, in part, “This incident has devastated our students, faculty, staff, and community at large. We appreciate the outpouring of support as our school grapples with this senseless act of violence.”
Investigators called the attack isolated, and are combing through security camera video from the area.
“And also, at the same time, who and if anybody made a call from the school saying that these two individuals were walking down the street, this was definitely an execution,” Holmes said.
So far, no one is in custody and no arrests have been made. Police are asking anyone with any information to contact Area 3 police detectives.
Mayor condemns ‘choice to kill’ after more than 100 people are shot in Chicago over holiday weekend
A police officer works the scene where a 47-year-old man and a 39-year-old man were shot in the 2400 block of West Monroe Street in Chicago on July 7, 2024. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
After another long holiday weekend that saw scores of people killed or wounded by gunfire — many of them children — city leaders gathered at Chicago police headquarters Monday morning to once again decry the city’s entrenched violence and call for accountability for those who carried out the shootings.
More than 100 people were shot in Chicago between Thursday and the end of the holiday weekend. Nineteen people were killed, according to Chicago police. Among the shootings: a brazen daytime attack in Greater Grand Crossing on Thursday left two women and an 8-year-old boy, Bryson Orr, dead.
While homicides and nonfatal shooting totals are both down so far compared to 2023, the milepost Fourth of July weekend typically ushers in the hottest two months of the year in Chicago, when city streets are busier and gun violence often peaks.
But unlike prior years, as shootings likely continue in the coming weeks, CPD officers also will be tasked with keeping the peace while handling the inevitable protests of next month’s Democratic National Convention and the city is in the spotlight on a national stage.
Mayor Brandon Johnson stressed that his administration has recently sought more federal funding to address root causes of violence, but still called for punishment for those who make “a choice to kill.”
Offenders make choices and violence is the result, the mayor said.
“This is a choice. It’s a choice to kill. It’s a choice to kill women. A choice to kill children. A choice to kill the elderly,” Johnson said. “These are choices that the offenders made and they calculated.”
CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling also said he was wrestling with the disregard for human life demonstrated by those to carried out the shootings.
“What we really have to think about is the brazenness and the behavior of those who could walk into a home and see children and women and open fire,” Snelling said. “It’s an amazing thing to think that, as a human being, that you could walk in and do something like that, that you could see a child and open fire.”
Around 45 of those shootings occurred Friday, according to Chicago police. Four mass shootings unfolded, starting in the early hours of Fourth of July. Just after midnight the next day, eight people were shot in the 1300 block of West Hastings Street. Less than two hours later, seven people were shot in Austin, leaving one man dead.
With NASCAR events also scheduled downtown, CPD officers saw their days off canceled throughout the holiday weekend. Snelling again said Monday that the department is constantly tweaking deployment strategies and monitoring crime patterns so that officers can be dispatched to where they’re most needed at any given time.
Beyond the DNC, the city’s summer calendar still has scores of large- and smaller-scale events that will demand their own police resources, too. Lollapalooza, the music festival in Grant Park that draws about 100,000 attendees per day, is once again scheduled for the first weekend in August.
The weekend’s final tally of violence, while jarring, was not out of line with long summer weekends of years past. Speaking Monday, CPD officials did not specify if any suspects were in custody in connection with any of the weekend’s violence.
But the majority of the holiday weekend’s violence took place in pockets of the city that have been plagued by heightened gun violence for generations.
“We are standing here today talking about a violent weekend because of generations of disinvestment,” Johnson said.
According to city data, Chicago recorded 120 homicides while another 482 people were wounded in shootings between July 1-Aug. 31, 2023. People shot during those two months accounted for more than 20% of all the city’s gun violence victims in 2023, according to a Tribune data analysis.
“When we think about this type of behavior, we think about the people in those communities. It is important to understand that, not only is the Chicago Police Department, but everyone in the city of Chicago, the mayor’s office, that we provide something,” Snelling added. “That we provide some type of comfort for those going through this on a daily basis. I think all too often we don’t recognize what people in these neighborhoods are going through.
Glen Brooks, CPD’s director of community policing, said the department will host an emergency assistance center Tuesday afternoon at Fosco Park — near the scene of the Hastings Street mass shooting — to offer resources and assistance to anyone affected by the city’s violence.
Large outdoor gatherings — commonplace throughout the city during the summer months — present unique challenges to officers, Snelling said. Daylong parties, often fueled by alcohol or other substances, can often exacerbate interpersonal disputes, often leading to gun violence.
“People who’ve been together all day, they come together as a group, they’ve been drinking, tempers flare and people decide that they’re going to air out their differences through violence,” Snelling said.
Johnson called for consequences for those involved.
“We need to ensure that we are holding every single individual accountable for the pain and trauma and the torment that they have caused in this city,” he added. “There will be consequences. There will be consequences for the violence. We will not let criminal activity ruin and harm our city.”
