Eight years ago this November, 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee walked to his grandmother’s house wearing black jeans, an orange polo shirt and carrying a basketball.

The boy, 83 pounds and 4-foot-8, was then lured into an alley by gang rivals of his father’s where he was shot in the head, police have said, revenge for an escalating gang feud that had resulted in at least two fatal shootings prior to Tyshawn’s slaying.

The brutal killing of the boy launched protests, vigils, calls for gun control legislation and a reckoning for Chicago about how gang feuds escalated into the targeted killing of a 9-year-old boy on a sunny autumn day in 2015.

The cycle of violence continued: Tyshawn’s father, Pierre Stokes, was accused of taking revenge, shooting and wounding the girlfriend of one of his son’s shooters, as well as two of her nephews several months later, on March 8, 2016.

Seven years later, Stokes, 33, is standing trial on charges of attempted murder and other felonies in proceedings marked by the memory of Tyshawn. The case has lingered in the criminal justice system longer than usual — if Tyshawn had lived, he would be around 17.

The jury trial began unfolding at the Leighton Criminal Court Building last week, continuing toward an expected resolution later this week. Prosecutors are contending with uncooperative witnesses, including at least one who was charged with contempt of court in order to compel him to come to court to testify.

Stokes has appeared each day with his public defenders and flanked by an emergency response team of the Cook County sheriff’s office, though they were ordered to dress in plain clothes after objections from defense attorneys.

On Nov. 2, 2015, Tyshawn Lee was doors from his own home and almost to his grandmother’s home when he was shot in an alley in the 8000 block of South Damen Avenue. His basketball was found nearby.

“He’s a good kid. He didn’t deserve that, he didn’t deserve that,” the boy’s mother, Karla Lee, told the Tribune shortly after the slaying. “Emotions? They’re gone. I don’t have my baby.”

Children are not uncommonly victims of the city’s gun violence epidemic when struck by stray bullets meant for others, but cases such as Tyshawn’s in which children are targeted are rare. Then-Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy deemed the shooting “probably the most abhorrent, cowardly, unfathomable crime” he had seen thus far in his career.

The boy’s killing came as a feud between factions of two of the city’s most notorious gangs, Gangster Disciples and the Black P Stones, intensified. Police and prosecutors have said gang members from a group associated with the Black P Stones targeted Tyshawn to avenge a double shooting three weeks earlier.

Violence prevention workers who mediate gang conflicts had been monitoring the feud, according to Tribune archives, as — weeks before Tyshawn’s killing — the mother of a gang member later charged in the boy’s death was wounded and her 25-year-old son killed in a shooting.

“When I found out he was targeted, I thought this is a new kind of killer, a new kind of shooter,” a former gang member and CeaseFire violence interrupter told the Tribune in 2015. “It was a time bomb, but in my wildest dreams, I never knew it was going to escalate to a kid.”

After his son’s death, Stokes, allegedly a member of the Killa Ward faction of the Gangster Disciples, told the Tribune he felt guilty he wasn’t with his son the day he died.

“To be honest, I feel bad,” he said. “I feel like it’s my fault.”

Chicago police arrested three people for the slaying: Corey Morgan, whose brother was shot and killed weeks before Tyshawn’s slaying, Kevin Edwards and Dwright Doty. Doty and Morgan were convicted by juries and sentenced to 90 years in prison for Doty and 65 for Morgan. Edwards pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

“Where does this mind-numbing, debilitating, senseless violence stop?” Judge Thaddeus Wilson said during sentencing. “Grandmas, mamas, kids and all are not fair game.

About five months after his son was killed — and shortly after details of his son’s targeted killing were revealed in court — Stokes found a target of his own, prosecutors have alleged: the girlfriend of Corey Morgan.

He looked at her, said, “I’m going to kill you, b—-,” and then fired shots, wounding her, prosecutors said.

The shooting happened March 8, 2016, at a gas station at 79th Street and Ashland Avenue on the South Side, according to police, wounding Morgan’s girlfriend Robyn Matthews and her two adult nephews, Antwan and Kevin Davis.

The Davis brothers reluctantly testified last week, with Antwan Davis wearing an ankle monitor after being charged with contempt of court to ensure his presence in court. They claimed to not recall, or not have said, much of what prosecutors asked.

“One thing I remember was there was like a little scuffle, and the next thing I know I heard shots,” Antwan Davis testified.

Assistant State’s Attorney Andrew Varga asked Davis whether he would recognize Pierre Stokes if he saw him, to which Davis replied, yes.

“Did you see Pierre Stokes by the gas station at this time?” Varga said.

“No,” Davis replied.

Asked by Varga about an identification Davis made of his shooter to detectives, Davis said he was intoxicated.

His brother Kevin Davis testified the following day, showing the jury a long scar on his arm from the shooting.

“Isn’t it true you looked (Stokes) right in the face?” Assistant State’s Attorney Emily Stevens said.

“No,” Kevin Davis replied.

“Isn’t it true you looked at him, eye to eye?” she asked.

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“No,” he answered again.

Prosecutors, though, called detectives to the stand who testified that the brothers identified Stokes in a photo lineup. The assistant state’s attorneys read to them their grand jury testimony, which mostly conflicted with their answers in court.

Stokes’ public defenders questioned the detectives on their choice of using a photo lineup rather than a live lineup, and noted in questions that, even when detectives used an independent administrator — meaning the detective giving the lineup didn’t know which photo was the suspect — Tyshawn’s killing had generated significant media attention.

The boy’s name came up throughout the trial, a touchstone for witnesses who, according to prosecutors, had identified the gas station shooter as Tyshawn’s father.

“So you did not refer to the shooter as Tyshawn’s father?” prosecutors asked a man who they called as a witness to the shooting.

“I referred to no one,” he replied.

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