Woom Sing Tse | Family photo
The chief of detectives says police are looking at other seemingly random shootings to see if they are linked to the suspect.
Chicago police say they don’t know why a gunman shot and killed a 71-year-old man as he walked to get a newspaper in Chinatown earlier this week.
Alphonso Joyner, 23, refused to talk to investigators when he was arrested moments after Woom Sing Tse was gunned down around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 200 block of West 23rd Place, a fews blocks from Tse’s home, according to police.
Joyner has been charged with first-degree murder. He has a record of gun charges, and Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said police are looking at other apparently random shootings to see if they’re linked to Joyner.
“Detectives from the North Side have already reached out to these detectives, and we’re comparing everything we possibly can from those cases to this case or any other case that may appear to a random act of violence,” Deenihan said at a news conference Wednesday night announcing the charges.
“We don’t know at this time but we’re definitely investigating that based on what happened here,” he said.
In Tuesday’s attack, Tse can be seen on surveillance video walking down 23rd Place, dressed in a hooded coat. A car pulls up and the driver fires shots at Tse, then gets out of the car, walks up to the curb and fires again.
Deenihan said the first shots from the car did not hit Tse. “You can see how startled he is,” he said of Tse.
Joyner fired a second volley of shots while still in the car, and Tse was struck this time and fell, Deenihan said. Joyner then got out and stood over Tse and fired more rounds,
Joyner got back into his car and drove away, but police were able to track him down with quick help from the community, police said.
The commander of the police district said the Chinatown Community Watch called him on his cellphone within minutes. Cmdr. Don Jerome said information from the scene was relayed to the department’s strategic support center and Joyner was soon spotted driving on the Kennedy Expressway.
He was pulled over at Jackson Boulevard and arrested. Joyner immediately invoked his right to silence. Police found a gun with an extended magazine in the car gunshot residue on Joyner’s hands, Deenihan said.
Tse’s family said he moved to the Chicago area from China 50 years ago and worked as a cook until he saved enough money to open a restaurant and then another.
“He was a man who came to this country with just a few dollars in his pockets and through hard work and his spirit, achieved the American dream,” Chicago police Supt. David Brown said Wednesday night. “Mr. Tse built a home and provided for his family. He was a father, a husband, a grandfather, a man of the community, a Chicagoan.”
Joyner is expected in court Thursday.
