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Friends Die Months Apart in Suspected Gang Conflict

By Becky Schlikerman | January 7, 2013 11:48pm
 Andre Myrick, 30, was killed in Humboldt Park on April 20.
Andre Myrick, 30, was killed in Humboldt Park on April 20.
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Family photo

CHICAGO — Andre Myrick and his best friend were both gunned down on Chicago’s West Side.

Though they were killed months apart, both died as a result of a gang conflict, Myrick’s sister said.

Myrick, 20, died April 20 on the 1400 block of North Keeler Avenue, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. His friend, Andre Brown, died June 3.

“They was into it with each other, disrespecting each other,” Lasonta Myrick said of the gang conflict. She was not immediately able to say which gangs were involved.

“He dropped his guard,” Lasonta Myrick said. “If he had any idea those boys were coming upon him, he would have run.”

Myrick, who used several aliases, had a lengthy criminal record in Cook County, including weapon-related and drug convictions, court records show, and spent years in prison. His most recent troubles with the law were in 2011 for domestic battery and possession of marijuana, but he was not convicted in either, records show.

Despite their hardscrabble ways, Myrick and his friend were trying to get their lives straightened out, his sister said.

She said her brother was calmer and was maturing.

“His anger was different,” she said.

Myrick, known as “Thugish,” grew up in Chicago and attended Orr High School but didn’t graduate. He was the youngest of six children.

His signature greeting was a resounding  “What’s up, fly guy,” to people on the street, his sister said, smiling at the memory.

“I loved him. He wasn’t no bad kid,” his mom, Sonia Myrick, 57, said. “Once he found the right way, it was too late.”