16-year-old charged with murder in death of U of C student

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 7:06 PM CST

By Tara Burghart
Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO -- A 16-year-old was charged Wednesday in the fatal shooting of a University of Chicago graduate student from Senegal and a string of armed robberies around the campus, police said.

Eric Walker, of Chicago, gave a videotaped statement, with a parent present, “admitting his part in this crime,” Lt. Dennis Keane said at a news conference.

Amadou Cisse, 29, was shot in the chest just steps from his home near the university shortly before 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 19.

Police still aren’t giving many details about what led to Cisse’s death or Walker’s exact role, other than to say the motive appeared to be robbery.

Walker was charged with one count of first-degree murder, three counts of armed robbery, one count of attempted armed robbery and one count of aggravated discharge of a firearm, authorities said.

The investigation is continuing, and police want to talk to others who could be connected to or know something about the crimes, Keane said.

Walker lived about 5 miles from where Cisse was shot, police said.

Cook County Circuit Judge Israel Desierto denied bond for Walker during a court appearance Wednesday, according to the state’s attorney’s office. Walker did not enter a plea.

He was represented by an attorney from the Cook County public defender’s office, but a message could not be left there on voicemail after business hours.

Henry Webber, the university’s vice president for community and government affairs, said the campus community was gratified at the arrest but still struggling with the loss of Cisse.

A native of Dakar, Senegal, Cisse just weeks before his death successfully defended his dissertation, a study of how molecules diffuse and migrate through polymers.

“He was an extraordinary young scientist and an extraordinary young person who would have contributed enormously to the world,” Webber said.

In the 90 minutes before Cisse was shot, two armed robberies occurred near the university’s campus -- one involving two women walking together and another involving a man, police said.

The robbery victims and other witnesses were able to provide a description of a car that fled the scenes -- silver, with a red driver’s side door, police said.

Footage from a surveillance camera mounted on a University of Chicago hospital and a Chicago Police Department camera mounted several blocks away captured images of the vehicle, which were used to provide information to the community.

Webber said university officials are working to improve campus security. A university police substation, to be staffed around the clock, opened Wednesday about two blocks from where Cisse was shot, and campus patrols are being increased between dusk and dawn.

The charges against Walker came as Cisse’s mother said her family will not travel from Dakar, Senegal, to the United States to pick up the doctoral degree that will be awarded to her son posthumously.

“No, no, no, absolutely no. I will not come,” Seynabou Cisse told the Chicago Sun-Times in a telephone interview Tuesday.

“I cannot count the ways in which this tragedy has affected my family,” the pediatric nurse and widowed mother of three said. “It has hit my family very hard. I am not coming to America. I just can’t.”

The University of Chicago invited the family to send a member to accept the degree on Dec. 7, offering to pay the expenses, according to Cisse’s 27-year-old brother, Alioune, a computer engineer.

His brother’s body, shipped home by the university, arrived in Dakar on Friday, and the Muslim family held a small burial service, Alioune said.