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Admitted gang member charged in boy's 2012 slayingFeb 20, 2013 (Chicago Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- A judge set bail at $2 million today for a 23-year-old man charged with fatally shooting a 13-year-old boy last June in the West Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side, authorities said. Judge James Brown set bail at $2 million during a hearing today for Nasean Flowers during a hearing today. Flowers, of the 6200 block of South Langley Avenue, was charged with murder in the death of Tyquan Tyler, police said. Tyquan was shot and killed June 24, 2012 while at a party with his 19-year-old sister in the 6200 block of South Rhodes Avenue when a fight broke out about 1:20 a.m., police said at the time of the slaying. Police said Flowers is an admitted gang member. Flowers appeared in court in a puffy blue vest jacket, blue jeans and his hair long dreadlocks down his back. As he was being led away by deputies, Flowers turned to his family in the courtroom gallery, kissed his fingers and waved at them. At the time of the shooting, Tyquan and witnesses were on the street where Flowers also was, Assistant State's Atty. Jennifer Sexton said in court. Flowers had been fighting with members of another gang when he and another offender entered an alley where Tyquan was standing. Flowers fired two shots toward Tyquan and the others, hitting Tyquan in the chest, Sexton said. Witnesses saw Flowers running from the alley with the gun still in his hand, according to Sexton. The two ran from the fight but someone pulled a gun and fired, hitting the boy, who collapsed on a sidewalk where paramedics found him, officials said. Tyquan was pronounced dead at 3:05 a.m. that morning at University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. An autopsy later that day determined Tyquan died of a gunshot wound to the chest and his death was ruled a homicide. Police said neither Tyquan nor his sister belonged to a gang. Tyquan had been staying in the 6500 block of South Washtenaw Avenue, less than five miles west of where he was shot. In 2007, Flowers was ordered to undergo supervision for six months after being found guilty of misdemeanor gang-related loitering, court records show. After seeing yet another neighborhood kid get shot, Sandra Tyler decided to send her 13-year-old son Tyquan to live with a relative in East Moline about eight months ago, she told the Tribune the day of the slaying. But while visiting for summer vacation, Tyquan went to a party with his sisters and was shot and killed, dying in his mother's arms, she said. Tyler said her son had been home for only two weeks when he begged her to let him go to a party in the city's Woodlawn area with his 15- and 19-year-old sisters. When the mother of three, a security guard, arrived after midnight to pick up her kids in the 6200 block of South Rhodes Avenue, her son was lying on the sidewalk, she said. "I held him in my arms on the sidewalk and talked to him while he was fighting for his life," Tyler said the day after the shooting. "I regret letting him go to the party. He was my baby -- so loving and respectful." Tyler and her daughters said Tyquan was walking away from the party where a fight had broken out and spilled into the street. A car drove by and shot into the crowd, Tyler said, hitting her son in the chest. Tyquan, who would have entered eighth grade in the fall of 2012, loved to play basketball with friends and draw portraits, Tyler said. His favorite class was art -- and he was good at it, she said. Tyler said she and her children went to Allen Temple AME Church in the Chatham area. Tyler's sister, Sherry, said Tyquan had "beautiful gray eyes," "long eyelashes" and "the soul of an old man." "I held him when he was born; I changed his diapers when he was a baby," said Sherry, who declined to give her last name. "He wasn't just a statistic -- he had a family who loved him." Tyquan was one of four people killed during violence that weekend. [email protected] [email protected] Twitter: @RosemarySobol1 ___ (c)2013 the Chicago Tribune Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |