Man gets 18 years in prison for running down child in Woodridge

A Bellwood man was sentenced Wednesday to 18 years in prison for deliberately running down his girlfriend's son with a car during a drunken dispute caught on videotape.

Tiyon Tyson, 30, is seen on the surveillance footage backing up his speeding car outside a Woodridge bowling alley Aug. 3, 2008 and intentionally striking the boy.

Tyson then fled the scene.

The boy, 10, was dragged 15 to 20 feet. He suffered road burns over 90 percent of his body, broken bones and a nearly severed ear.

He also had to have his spleen removed as a result of his injuries.

The woman, who wrote supportive letters to the jailed defendant afterward and signed them as his "future wife," suffered less-serious injuries.

The two did not wed, but she did not support the prosecution's case. Tyson now has a new fiancee.

He pleaded guilty earlier this year to aggravated battery to a child charges. The defendant faced six to 30 years in prison.

"If (the boy) had died, this would have been a murder," DuPage Circuit Judge Kathryn Creswell said. "The defendant used his vehicle as a weapon and he drove it directly at the victim and his mother."

Tyson must serve 85 percent of the prison term before being eligible for parole.

This was his first felony conviction as an adult, but Tyson committed a 1996 aggravated battery when he was 16. He received probation for the earlier offense.