Man charged with beating, carjacking of chef in Chinatown

An 18-year-old man is charged with attempted murder and other felonies for the beating and carjacking over five months ago near Chinatown, officials announced Friday.

Termaine Patterson was arrested Thursday in the attack on Jin Yut Lew, 61.

Lew was driving from his son’s South Loop home on the morning of April 7 when people in another vehicle, which also had been carjacked, began to follow him, according to his family and Chicago police.

When Lew got to the 2500 block of South Princeton Avenue, three people exited the other vehicle and ran toward Lew’s car, Chief of Detective Brendan Deenihan told reporters Friday. Deenihan said cameras did not capture “the actual incident,” but Lew’s vehicle and the other car fled the area soon after.

About 6:30 a.m., a Department of Streets and Sanitation worker found Lew slumped against a building, “incoherent and bleeding from the head,” according to police. Authorities could not identify him, as his wallet and phone were gone. He was rushed in critical condition to Stroger Hospital.

Lew’s family searched frantically until detectives “put two and two together” and identified him, Deenihan said.

He had suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, according to Lew’s son, Alford Lew, who started an online fundraiser to pay his father’s medical bills. So far, more than $100,000 has been collected.

Lew “is still not doing well,” Deenihan said. “He needs 24-hour care and it’s undetermined if he’s ever going to truly recover from this incident.”

Patterson was caught after an investigation that involved detectives using license plate readers, as well as Lew’s credit card, to track down Lew’s vehicle after the carjacking, police said. Patterson is charged with felony counts of attempted first-degree murder, robbery, aggravated vehicular hijacking, two counts of aggravated battery and a count of unlawful use of a credit card.

A second person, 17 at the time of the incident, is separately charged with possession of a stolen motor vehicle, police said. He was not involved in the attack, Deenihan said, but was seen inside his vehicle on a later date.

Three other suspects who have not been charged or identified are being sought, Deenihan said.

Lew immigrated to the United States in the 1980s and “worked tirelessly” as a chef to support his family here and in China, his son has said.

“In the Chinese restaurant community, he was a well respected head chef who over 40 years gave many new immigrants their first starts and trained them in his kitchen,” Alford Lew said in an online post. “Many of these colleagues went on to be restaurant leaders across Chicago.”