In the early hours of May 14, 2025, 40-year-old Donnell L. Patton, a male from Chicago, was gunned down outside a BP gas station in the South Shore neighborhood, in the 7400 block of South Stony Island Avenue. Moments earlier, Donnell L. Patton, 40, male, had been arguing with another man when the confrontation spilled outside and bullets followed.
He was struck multiple times and pronounced dead shortly thereafter; early reports differed on whether he died at the scene or after transport to the University of Chicago Medical Center, but all agreed the gunfire ended his life within minutes.
As the muzzle flashes faded, the shooter fled in a white vehicle, a getaway first described simply as “a white car” and later identified through footage as a white Chevy Impala. Security video captured the encounter: two men face-to-face, the gun drawn at close range, the shots to the face and body, and then a hurried escape into the passenger seat of the waiting car.
Detectives pulled the thread quickly. Using license plate readers to track the car seen on camera, officers set up surveillance and, about nine hours after the killing, moved in on a man approaching the vehicle near the 7200 block of South Cornell Avenue. They arrested 41-year-old Jonathan Robinson and prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder; he also faced a felony cannabis charge tied to the same arrest. A judge later ordered him detained pending trial, and court records noted prior convictions as part of the detention argument.
By May 16, city and county officials formally announced the charges stemming from the gas-station argument that escalated into the fatal shooting of Donnell L. Patton, 40, male. No additional suspects were named publicly, and authorities did not indicate that anyone else was in custody in connection with the case. Public records, memorial listings, and death notices corroborated his identity, age, and date of death, while local outlets tracked the case from the first police alert to the charging announcement.
