Story highlights Police superintendent says boy was targeted because of his father

"These are noncombatants now being assassinated," Garry McCarthy tells reporters

Tyshawn Lee, 9, was "lured" to the spot where he was murdered

(CNN) A 9-year-old boy shot and killed in a Chicago alley this week was the intended target of a gang-related shooting, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy told reporters Thursday.

Tyshawn Lee was "lured" into the alley where he was killed, McCarthy said, standing steps from the crime scene.

"Tyshawn Lee was murdered in probably the most abhorrent, cowardly, unfathomable crime that I've witnessed in 35 years of policing," the superintendent said. "We're pretty certain that this is not an accident. He was not a bystander."

The child was targeted, according to McCarthy, because of his "family relationship with a member of a gang."

When asked which family member, he identified the boy's father.

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