Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― A 22-year-old man has been charged with fatally beating a Chicago Public School student with a baseball bat over the weekend.

Nathaniel Tucker was charged Monday with first-degree murder in the death of 18-year-old Albert Vaughn Jr.

Tucker was arrested Saturday night immediately following the incident, police said. He was apprehended by police after a foot chase that ended in the 7000 block of South Throop Street.

Tucker is scheduled to appear in bond court Tuesday morning. He lives only about a mile from Vaughn's home.

Robert Vaughn is still in anguish over the murder of his younger brother, killed Saturday night after attending a party around the corner from the family's home.

"It just hurts, you know what I'm saying," he said.

"He was a good person," said Monica, one among the many who stopped by to sign a makeshift memorial. "He was a fun person. He liked to play. It was a senseless tragedy over nothing."

This weekend's death brings the total of CPS students killed this school year to 23.

There was extra security on hand Monday morning at Percy L. Julian High School on the Far South Side, where the latest victim was a student.

Students walk through metal detectors to get inside the school, but there's really nothing to protect them from violence off campus.

The kids at Julian know that all too well – Vaughn was one of their peers.

Classmate Aujanique Huntley said, "He was never a troublemaker or anything, so it's sad that that happened to him."

The same sorts of things were said last year about Julian student Blair Holt. The school had a memorial event for Blair recently, during which people decided to make the school, in the principal's words, "an island of peace."

But it's tough to enforce those sorts of principles off school grounds; that they mourn another young student is proof, and it's frustrating.

Julian Principal Dr. Darreyl M. Young-Gibson said, "This is another senseless tragedy and highlights our society's need to solve differences with words not weapons."

Rev. Sharyon Cosey, a school volunteer, said, "It's gotta be an all-fronts battle to combat this and I think it can be won. It's about role models and support, emotional support."

She offered that support to kids at Julian on Monday. She thinks other clergy people need to do the same.

With a death toll of 23 students so far this year, the call has been to get guns off the streets, but Vaughn was hit in the head with a bat.

Police point out there was an ongoing feud between Vaughn and Tucker. But the disagreement didn't have to turn deadly -- that was the message clergy was trying to spread Monday at Vaughn's high school.

CPS Interfaith Director, Rev. Renaldo Kyles said, "This is a situation where the gun wasn't used. It's not just guns; it's violence. That's what we have to get to our young people, to teach them better conflict resolution, let them know better way of resolving their differences."

He and others say children need to learn the difference between right and wrong from someone. They need to learn to value life.

Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan, who has been calling for tougher gun laws, added the need for tougher parenting to Monday's response.

"We have to challenge parents to take back streets to take back their blocks," Duncan said. "Where there are folks carrying guns, where there are gang bangers people have to say this isn't acceptable on my block, on my street."

Initially, it was believed another CPS student was also slain over the weekend. Marcus Johnson was leaving a friend's home near 11429 S. Calumet Ave., and was walking towards his car when a gunman shot him in the head.

Witnesses say they heard four gunshots coming from the gangway. Twenty-year-old Johnson fell to the sidewalk, where his father identified his body.

At first, it was reported that Marcus Johnson was a student at Fenger High School, but Monday morning a CPS spokesman said that Johnson was not currently enrolled at any CPS school.

Marcus Johnson's father said his youngest son was not involved in gangs or drugs.

"He was just with his friends, someone came out to shoot him – for what reason, I don't know," he said. "Somebody knows something, please come forward and do the right thing."

CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman, Dorothy Tucker and Joanie Lum contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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