The parents of a nine-year-old Chicago boy who was lured into an alley and executed last week, allegedly because of his father’s gang connections, have reached out to the public for donations.
But there are already troubling questions about how the money is being used, and some donors are claiming they feel duped.
Fox 32 News, the network’s Chicago affiliate, reported that Tyshawn Lee’s mother, Karla Lee, raised more than $17,000 through a GoFundMe fundraising web page with the title, “Help me lay my baby to rest.”
But Lee admits she used at least some of the money that the public had contributed toward her son’s burial to purchase a car instead.
Lee’s car of choice was a 2015 Chrysler 200, a vehicle that can retail for more than $30,000.
“Y’all don’t know nothing about me,” she told a local ABC 7 Chicago station. “For y’all to be bashing me like that, and I just lost my child.”
Lee said that another party stepped forward to pay for her son’s funeral and that Tyshawn would have wanted her to have safe transportation, especially as she drives to work through gang-infested neighborhoods.
While Lee has faced intense backlash for her decision, both through news outlets and social media, her actions seem to pale in comparison to those taken by Tyshawn Lee’s father.
Pierre Stokes, who allegedly also goes by the alias Wooh Gotti, is raising money by selling T-shirts for as much $45 in Tyshawn’s memory. According to Fox News, he also briefly set up a GoFundMe page himself asking for public donations.
Stokes’ reported gang affiliations are suspected as a cause of Tyshawn Lee’s death. Further, Chicago police have reported that the T-shirt-selling Stokes is refusing to cooperate with their investigation into who killed his son.
I thought selling drugs was a more prosperous enterprise for this deadbeat low life cursed Dad. These degenerates should sue their parents for lack of basic life skills training.
This is absolute proof that go fund me needs to be outlawed. This is about the fifth fraudulent case I’ve read about in the last few months alone !!
This is a prime example of why it’s hard for me to contribute to these Gofund requests. The father and mother are absolutely WRONG in what they did. The mother should have used the money for the purpose that she asked for it namely to bury her son. The father seems to be just another criminal that cares nothing about his deceased son or else he would cooperate with the authorities trying to find his son’s murderer. They sound like real pathetic people.
They sound more like CROOKS!
This is a good lesson for well-intentioned people. Not all causes are worthy causes. Some causes will latch onto a seemly worthy goal but donations will go for something totally different. It sounds like these parents are more interested in exploiting their child’s death than in finding justice for the child.
Too many people spend with their heart. You need to use your head to make sure you are supporting something worthwhile.
In the weeks before Christmas last year, a woman caught up to my wife just as she got to her car at Trader Joe’s. The woman laid out a sob story about how she had just gotten kicked out of her home with her kids and needed gas money to stay warm in their car for the night. My daughter said my wife gave her $20.
Then this summer, a lady stopped her car across the sidewalk and begged for money, saying she needed to buy gas to get home to Fargo, North Dakota, and someone had stolen her purse. My daughter recognized the woman from Christmas and, seeing her purse on the back floor, she said, “Oh, look! There’s your purse!” The woman stomped the gas and peeled out.
I do not give to anyone anymore. Panhandlers are making way more money than me, and they’re not paying a dime in taxes. No doubt, because they have no record of income, the government is giving them all sorts of handouts already. Sorry, peeps, you don’t get squat from me no more.
These parents are despicable. Folks like this are why I don’t donate to anything. They’ll just pop out another kid and kill that one too and then ask for more donations…
I think there should be a 3 panel board to dole out the cash to the funeral home and gravesite and let that be it. Why would you give cash ($1,000s) to ANYONE. If this is what you do…fund folks who need $ for a specific person, then a panel of three (to ensure no swindling there) should destribute the money directly to the party that must be paid. Simple as that.
P.S. Does anyone check to see if these donor-seekers are legit in their need (check their stories?).