AN 18-year-old suspect has been charged in the murder of University of Chicago graduate Dennis Shaoxiong Zheng last week.

Chicago Police Supt. David Brown announced Nov. 12 that Alton Spann has been charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery, and two counts of unlawful use of a weapon.

Police said that it was all over a cellphone that was later sold for US$100.

Zheng, 24 — who received a master’s degree in statistics from the University of Chicago — was shot during a robbery at 54th Place and Ellis Avenue on Nov. 9 afternoon just before 2 p.m.

Zheng was walking home from a class when Spann came up, announced a robbery at gunpoint, and shot Zheng in the torso. Spann then took Zheng’s personal belongings — including electronics.

“The victim did nothing, at all, to deserve being shot and killed — at all,” Brown said. “Whether he was struggled, or startled, or said something back, he did nothing to provoke this heinous crime.”

Spann was then seen entering a running black Ford Mustang that was headed west on 54th Place. Area One detectives spotted the Ford Mustang – and Spann getting in – on POD (police observation device) cameras, private cameras, and University of Chicago cameras.

Police determined based on the license plate that the Ford Mustang had been reported stolen from south suburban Markham on Nov. 3. The license plate helped lead police to Spann.

At 6:20 p.m. Nov. 10, Spann was tracked down near North Avenue and Sedgwick Street in the Marshall Field Homes development in Old Town. He had two guns and the key fob for the Ford Mustang.

Another video showed Spann driving the Mustang to a cellphone store and going in to sell Zheng’s personal items for about US$100. The items were recovered by detectives.

When he was arrested, Spann was also wearing the same clothes he was in at the time of the shooting, police said. One of the two weapons Spann had with him matched what was used to kill Zheng in broad daylight.

“This case was solved through video cameras and license plate readers,” Brown said.

Police said Spann does not have prior offenses on his record as an adult, but he is only 18.

“We want not only for Mr. Spann to have significant consequence to the furthest extent to the law allows so that we can send a message to like-minded offenders,” Brown said.

Zheng was shot in a neighborhood of doctors, minutes away from a trauma center. But even the quick response of one of those doctors wasn’t enough to save Zheng’s life.

The internist encountered Zheng moments after the shooting happened, according to Chicago police and the doctor.

“I think I arrived a few minutes too late to save him,” said the doctor, who spoke to the Chicago Tribune on the condition of anonymity because he lives nearby. “It all happened pretty fast. I did maybe 30 chest compressions and the paramedics were already here.”

Just before Zheng was killed, two witnesses said they saw a man in a mask and a black hooded sweatshirt get out of a black sports car in the 900 block of East 54th Place around 2 p.m.

Zheng was walking on the sidewalk when the masked man approached him. The witnesses said there was a brief struggle before the gunman shot him in the chest, ran back to his car and drove away.

Not long after, a witness ran up to the doctor’s car as he was parking in his garage around 2 p.m. — a time that on any other day, he said, he would not have been home.

But on Nov. 9, he had to let a construction crew into his home to begin work on a bathroom remodel. He still had his stethoscope around his neck as he followed the other man over to where Zheng lay on the ground, his gray hooded sweatshirt and the T-shirt underneath soaked in blood.

The internist said the other witness didn’t seek him out because of his medical training — he was just looking for anyone who might be able to help.

“He was totally unconscious. He didn’t have a pulse, he wasn’t breathing,” the doctor said. “As I started chest compressions I could hear sirens already. Time was flying. I only did maybe 30 compressions. When they arrived, I told them I couldn’t find a pulse. I told them I didn’t think he was alive.”

Zheng was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 2:13 p.m.

Zheng is remembered by the University of Chicago community and friends as a passionate student and a generous friend.

Born in Sichuan Province, China, Zheng attended college at the University of Hong Kong. As a student in the University of Chicago’s Department of Statistics, he used machine learning for inferring gene regulatory networks. He received his master’s degree this past June and wanted to be a data scientist, colleagues said.

Faculty and friends alike remembered Zheng for his ever-present smile, his constant optimism and thoughtfulness, and his willingness to help others. Nan Jiang, a close friend from high school, said Zheng always took time to encourage those around him. “Every time you asked him a question, he tried his best to help you. I think he spent a lot of time on that,” Jiang said. “No matter what, he always had an encouraging word. And I think that wasn’t just for me. It was everyone he has had contact with.”

Outside of academics, he enjoyed traveling and cooking, as well as playing piano, squash and table tennis. Zheng was also interested in Chinese calligraphy and photography — though he was less captivated by the technical aspects of capturing images than the simple act of admiring the world’s beauty, his friends said.

Zheng’s dedication as a scholar extended beyond his own department. He also worked as a teaching assistant at University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and Booth School of Business.

At least 200 University of Chicago students, many of them international, gathered at the campus’ Main Quadrangle on Tuesday — a week after the fatal shooting, calling for new safety measures.

They held handmade signs echoing their concerns: “We want safety,” “Who is next?” “No longer safe under daylight,” “We are here to learn not to die.”

Following the shooting of Zheng, students quickly banded together with help from local activists and student groups to come up with a list of demands for the university and to organize the rally.

Students want new safety plans put in place — and they say the university has not done enough to protect them or include them in discussions on safety plans.

And students are not the only ones complaining. More than 300 professors also signed a letter calling for real change.

Zheng was the third University of Chicago student killed in less than a year.

In July, someone shot and killed Max Lewis on the Chicago Transit Authority Green Line near 51st Street. Lewis was struck by a stray bullet while riding the Green Line.

Lewis from Denver, 20, was a rising third-year student at the University of Chicago. He just accepted an investment banking offer he had been working so hard for and was riding home from his summer internship downtown when his life was cut short.

Back in January, 30-year-old Ph.D. student Yiran Fan, 30, was shot and killed when Jason Nightengale went on a killing spree from the South Side of Chicago to Evanston. Fan, also from China, was a student in a joint program of the Booth School of Business and the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics.

Fan was shot and killed in the parking garage at the Regents Park building, at 5035 S. East End Avenue in a section of the East Hyde Park-Kenwood neighborhood known as Indian Village.

According to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, there have been 735 homicides in Chicago this year, nearly 100 more than by the same time last year.

Murders in Chicago have increased 3 percent year over year and 59 percent since 2019. Shootings have increased 10 percent year over year and 67 percent since 2019. Chicago police are on track to recover 12,000 guns this year and have so far cleared 315 murder cases.

(SD-Agencies)