Another sad case of racism. A 59 year old father in Chicago was killed on Wednesday after he protected his daughter from a man saying racist comments to her. Michael Tingling, father of the 15 year old daughter put his daughter behind his back as he begin to fight the Joseph Firek. Shortly after, Tingling died of cardiac arrest. Tirek has been charged charged with first degree murder and a hate crime. Read the full story after the jump.
Every weekday, Masharah Tingling says her dad would walk her to her school and be waiting for her when classes finished up.
But on Wednesday afternoon, their ritual went terribly wrong when the two were confronted by a man with a lengthy criminal record on a Rogers Park street, according to Chicago police and Cook County prosecutors.
When the man hurled a racial epithet at them, Michael Tingling pulled his 15-year-old daughter behind him, authorities said. The man then struck her father in the chest, he tried to defend himself but moments later he collapsed in a nearby business and was rushed to the hospital in full cardiac arrest, according to prosecutors. Michael Tingling, 59, was pronounced dead at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston less than a hour.
On Friday, Masharah, an 8th grader at Chicago Math and Science Academy, was helping her family pick out a casket and clothes to dress her father’s body in.
“I want him to have a proper funeral, to be buried the right way,’’ she said in a telephone interview.
A judge ordered Joseph Firek, 59, who is on parole for a residential burglary conviction, held on $250,000 bail Friday on charges of first-degree murder and a hate crime.
Firek has a criminal record dating back to 1996 that includes prison stints for burglary and theft convictions. His attorney said he was living on disability benefits for black lung disease, emphysema and psychiatric illness. He also said he was receiving outpatient psychiatric treatment.
Prosecutors said the altercation started at about 2 p.m. by the 7100 block of North Clark Street – near where Firek lived – when Firek walked past Tingling and his daughter.
The girls’ mother, Yolanda Simmons, who was not present, said Tingling picked up his daughter early from school for a doctor’s appointment and the two were first headed to buy a doughnut.
As Firek walked by, he brushed his shoulder against Tingling’s daughter, looking at her as he did. Police said Firek made “inappropriate gestures” to the girl.
According to the mother, Firek “stared at them, looked at her up and down, and her dad grabbed her, put her behind him and he told him, ‘You need to walk away.’“
“The guy was just standing there grinning,” she said.
In court, prosecutors said Tingling had pulled his daughter behind him after Firek had stopped in their path and asked, “What (N-word)?”
Authorities said Tingling is black and Firek is white.
Assistant State’s Attorney Rita Infelise said Firek punched Tingling in the upper chest. Tingling pushed him, and Firek punched him again in the chest, she said. The two then exchanged punches before a bystander tried to separate them, but Firek continued to hit Tingling, according to Infelise.
As Tingling backed away, Firek pursued him into the intersection of Clark and Estes Avenue, the prosecutor said. Tingling’s daughter called 911.
Moments later, the daughter accompanied her dad into an auto shop. He was feeling ill and short of breath and sat down, Infelise said.
As paramedics assisted Tingling and rushed him to the hospital, his daughter pointed out Firek on the scene and officers arrested him.
Tingling was pronounced dead at 2:46 p.m., officials said. He died of heart disease and from stress due to an altercation, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
His family said Tingling was a Belize native who boxed in his youth there. He had health problems – diabetes and heart disease — and wore a pacemaker, they said.
He had worked factory and retail jobs over the years and was popular in the Rogers Park neighborhood where he lived.
Carmen Preister, owner of the Black Pearl hair salon, had been friends with Tingling since the 1980s. Her shop is in the same building where he lived, and he would stop in nearly every day to say hello.
Despite his health problems, Preister said, Tingling always tried to help out when he could with odd jobs such as washing towels, cleaning up, moving things in the salon or walking customers to their cars when it was very early or late. “I just want you to be safe,” he would tell them.
He was a jokester, but his face would remain serious, and sometimes clients wouldn’t know how to take him at first, Preister said.
Most of all, she said, he was a “proud father,” looking forward to his daughter’s graduation from 8th grade and bragging about her good grades and her making the honor roll.
“My girl is going to graduate,” he would say, thumping both his hands to his heart, Preister remembered. “It won’t be the same around here anymore.”
Tingling’s daughter said his death has reinforced her plans to become a veterinarian.
“My dad always encouraged me to believe in my dreams,” she said. “I am going to make him proud.”
