A funeral service was held at St. Sabina Church on the South Side of Chicago for 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee on Nov. 10. The church is about a mile from where Tyshawn was lured into an alley and shot in the head and the back on the afternoon of Nov. 2. The Rev. Michael Pfleger told the congregation that it’s not true that Tyshawn was in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Tyshawn was on his way to play basketball in the park near his grandmother’s house,” the priest said. “Our children have the right to walk down our streets. Our children have the right to play in the park. Our children have the right to sit on their porches. Our children have the right to be safe wherever they are in the city of Chicago. The murderer, the executioner, the assassin was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” As of Nov. 11, there were 428 murders reported in Chicago in 2015. Eight of them occurred between Tyshawn’s death and his funeral.

This article appears in November 30 2015.