On the night of December 14, 2021, the quiet of West Pullman on Chicago's Far South Side gave way to flashing lights on the 300 block of West 120th Street. There, around 9:15 p.m., police found Tyrone T. Smith—also known publicly as Tyrone 'Smith' Hayes—a 46-year-old Black male, with a gunshot wound to the chest.
He was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where the 46-year-old male was pronounced dead, his final movements fixed to that winter evening and that narrow
stretch of roadway.
In the hours after the killing, his name began to appear across public records and memorial pages: as Tyrone Smith, a 46-year-old Black male from Chicago remembered among those lost to gun violence that day.
Detectives marked off the block and began their canvass, but by that night there was no one in custody.
Follow-up roundups of the day's shootings repeated the stark outline: a 46-year-old Black male shot in West Pullman, rushed to the hospital, and pronounced dead; no arrests announced, no suspect description released in the immediate aftermath.
In the days that followed, public summaries continued to list the case without noting any suspects, and Tyrone T 'Smith' Hayes' killing remained one more unsolved entry in the city's year-end toll.
