The 67-year-old contractor was killed Tuesday near his office, leaving police to investigate a public attack in a key redevelopment corridor.
CHICAGO, Ill. — The fatal shooting of contractor and community mentor Jerry Lewis near the United Center has shaken Chicago’s Near West Side, where relatives, colleagues and local leaders said the 67-year-old spent years helping residents reach construction jobs and business opportunities tied to major development.
Lewis was killed shortly before 1 p.m. Tuesday near West Madison and South Leavitt streets, according to police and family members. By the next day, the case had grown from a daytime homicide investigation into a broader civic loss because Lewis was closely linked to Project 1901 and to neighborhood efforts meant to bring West Side residents into the work surrounding it. Police said two people of interest were being questioned, but investigators had not publicly explained why Lewis was targeted or whether the attack was connected to any personal or professional dispute.
Family members said Lewis was walking between offices, or stepping out on a routine errand, when two armed men approached him and opened fire. Police said the shooting happened in the 2100 block of West Madison Street near a residential building, only a few blocks from the United Center. Witnesses said the burst of shots came in the middle of the workday, startling people in a corridor filled with traffic, apartment buildings and neighborhood institutions. One nearby resident said she heard four or five shots before seeing police and emergency crews arrive. Lewis was struck in the head, and first responders performed CPR before taking him to Stroger Hospital, where he died. By late afternoon Tuesday, officers had blocked a long stretch of Madison Street while detectives processed the scene and tried to piece together the path of the attackers and the victim’s final movements.
What distinguished this case from many public crime briefs was who Lewis was to the neighborhood around him. Relatives said he had built a career in construction and then used it to mentor others, especially people from underserved communities and women seeking entry into the trades. He was connected to JLL Construction Services and served in a leadership role with the 1901 Community Implementation Committee, a nonprofit designed to help community members train for subcontracting and business opportunities connected to the $7 billion Project 1901 plan around the United Center. To supporters, Lewis represented a bridge between a huge private redevelopment vision and residents who wanted a meaningful share of the jobs and contracts that might follow. His death, then, landed not only as personal grief but as a blow to a local ecosystem of training, outreach and economic hope.
His wife said Lewis believed deeply in helping others advance. Friends and students described him as the kind of mentor who did more than talk about opportunity. They said he held regular classes in his office, invited industry professionals to explain how the business worked, and tried to show newcomers what it took to compete in a field often shaped by connections, experience and access to capital. Those who worked with him said he especially wanted people from neighborhoods long left out of large construction deals to see a path into the industry. That mission gave him a public identity beyond his company work. It also helps explain why local reactions to the shooting quickly focused on his life’s work as much as the crime itself. For many on the West Side, Lewis was not simply known; he was invested in other people’s progress.
Local officials echoed that view. Ald. Walter Burnett said Lewis had devoted his life to helping young and old residents find direction and opportunity. Other community voices described him as someone who did not reduce people to their past mistakes, but instead looked for ways to bring them into productive work. Such comments placed Lewis inside a larger story playing out on the Near West Side, where redevelopment brings promise, pressure and scrutiny over who benefits. Project 1901 has been marketed as a transformational plan for land surrounding the United Center, and with projects of that size come repeated calls for accountability, neighborhood hiring and visible community investment. Lewis’ work sat in the middle of those expectations. His death now raises practical questions as well as emotional ones, including who will continue the mentoring and organizing roles he helped shape and how the community committee’s work will move forward.
Police, however, remain focused on the unanswered facts of the shooting. Investigators said two people of interest were in custody for questioning, but no charges had been announced by Wednesday night. Authorities had not publicly laid out a suspected motive, and they had not said whether evidence suggested a planned ambush, a business-related grievance, a personal conflict or another explanation. Reports indicated officers detained two armed men after the shooting, but officials had not fully described their status or detailed any weapons evidence in a public briefing. Detectives are expected to keep reviewing witness statements, nearby surveillance footage and physical evidence collected on Madison Street. Until those steps produce a fuller case, the major facts remain stark and incomplete: Lewis was killed in public in the middle of the day, in a neighborhood where he had invested much of his professional energy, and the reason for the attack is still unknown.
At the street level, neighbors said the shooting felt jarring because it happened in plain view at a time when people were going about ordinary routines. The block sits near homes, schools, a public library and a firehouse, and residents said that mix of everyday activity made the violence more unsettling. Yet alongside the shock was a steady stream of remembrance. Family members said Lewis wanted people around him to “be better and make it.” Friends recalled his presence at youth and community events. Workers and trainees remembered a mentor who saw possibility where others saw barriers. That combination of public violence and public memory has shaped the first days after his death. The investigation remains open, but in the neighborhood Lewis served, the story is already being told as both a homicide case and the loss of a builder who measured success by how many others he could lift.
Police said Wednesday that detectives were still questioning two people of interest and had not released a motive. The next milestone will be any formal charging decision and, after that, a fuller account from investigators of what they believe led to Lewis’ killing.
Author note: Last updated March 25, 2026.