Chicago Heights, Illinois: Man Charged With Murder in Halloween Killing of Anti-Violence Leader Andre Thomas

A Chicago man has been charged with first-degree murder in the Halloween night killing of Andre Thomas, the anti-violence leader who ran a community intervention group in Chicago Heights, Illinois, police said.

Alex D. Morris, 54, of Chicago, is scheduled to appear on Tuesday, November 10, in the Circuit Court of Cook County's Sixth Municipal District in Markham, where a detention hearing is expected. The Cook County State's Attorney's Office approved the first-degree murder charge on Sunday, November 8. A charge is an allegation, not a conviction, and Morris is presumed innocent.

Thomas, 57, of Matteson, was the chief executive and executive director of Integrity & Fidelity, known as I&F, a community violence intervention organization he founded in 2021. The group works in Chicago and the south suburbs, teaching conflict resolution, stepping into street conflicts as they happen, and connecting residents with support services.

Police said officers responded just before 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 31, 2026, to the 400 block of West 14th Street in Chicago Heights after a gunshot detection alert. Thomas was found at his office address in that block at about 9:25 p.m. with multiple gunshot wounds. The Chicago Heights Fire Department took him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The Cook County medical examiner's office ruled the death a homicide.

Chicago Heights police asked the Illinois State Police and the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force to help with the investigation. Police said the first week of work identified several persons of interest, including Morris.

On Friday, November 6, Chicago Heights officers and task force members, with help from the Chicago Police Department, found Morris near 95th Street and Perry Avenue in Chicago and arrested him without incident, police said.

Police said they will not release information about the other persons of interest or further details of the case while the investigation continues. No motive has been released.

Thomas spent years doing the work that put him in rooms and on blocks where shootings had just happened or were about to. Before leading I&F, he had worked with other violence prevention organizations, including Ceasefire, after rebuilding his own life following a prison term. People who worked with him and knew him gathered last week for a balloon release in his honor, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

His death came on one of the busiest nights of the year in the south suburbs, and the case drew wide attention because of who Thomas was: a man whose job was to talk people out of gun violence, killed by gunfire a short walk from the work he organized.

Anyone with information about the shooting can contact the Chicago Heights Detective Division. Police have asked residents and business owners near West 14th Street to review security video from the night of October 31.