A Chicago man who had eleven open juvenile cases and was on electronic monitoring walked into a Near West Side restaurant last month, threatened to shoot the employee, jumped the counter, and fled with the cash register, prosecutors say. But the local cops have arrested him so many times that they immediately recognized him and went straight to his house, where they found him sitting on the front steps.
Jeremiah Tatum Dawson, 18, is charged with aggravated robbery in connection with the May 31 incident at the Subway, 1651 West Roosevelt Road.
According to prosecutors, Tatum Dawson entered the restaurant wearing a camouflage sweatshirt and a facemask. When a 27-year-old cashier asked him to remove the mask, he allegedly refused, telling the employee, “I have a gun and I’m gonna shoot you” as he held his hand in his front sweatshirt pocket as if concealing a weapon. The cashier retreated to the back of the store to call 911. Tatum Dawson then jumped over the counter, grabbed the cash register containing about $450, and fled on foot, prosecutors said.
The robbery was captured on video, and his escape was recorded by a Chicago Police Department surveillance camera. Officers later found the discarded register nearby.
A sergeant who knew Tatum Dawson from prior arrests recognized him and knew he lived about five blocks from the restaurant, officials said. When officers went to the home, they found him sitting on the front stairs wearing the same camouflage sweatshirt seen in the store’s surveillance footage. The cashier later identified him as the robber.
Tatum Dawson was also wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet at the time, according to court records. After being removed from a squad car, he spontaneously said something to the effect of “I know I robbed,” prosecutors said. He allegedly admitted to taking the register, breaking it open, and removing the money, though he said the cash flew out of his pocket as he ran home.
His eleven pending juvenile cases, all filed this year, include seven felonies: two thefts in February, three aggravated robberies in March, and a criminal damage and theft in April. The misdemeanors include two thefts and a trespassing in February and a trespassing in March.
His juvenile convictions include two thefts, two trespass to vehicles, possession of a stolen vehicle, and a domestic battery with strangulation that earned him a three-year juvenile detention sentence in November 2025, prosecutors said.
In addition to the Subway robbery, court records show Tatum Dawson is charged with stealing the cash drawer from Walgreens, 1601 North Wells Street, in Old Town on March 14. Judge Ankur Srivastava granted the state’s request to detain Tatum Dawson.
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