The Attorney General’s Office identified Hillsborough Township Police Officer George Kokinakous as the person who shot and killed Patrick Chin, 43, during a police-involved shooting that occurred on Sept. 28, 2021.
Chin sustained fatal injuries after five uniformed officers of the Hillsborough Township Police Department responded to his residence on Piedmont Path at approximately 4:10 p.m. on Sept. 28 in response to a request that the police check on the welfare on him.
When the officers arrived, they encountered Chin inside the house, who they allege was holding a sword that was approximately three-feet long.
During the encounter, Kokinakous fired his service weapon, fatally wounding the resident. Officers and medical personnel rendered first aid to Chin, who was transported to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, where he was pronounced deceased at 5:28 p.m.
The four other police who were at the scene at the time of the shooting have been identified as Officer Robert Feriello, Officer Thomas Gurba, Officer Kyle Edmonds, and Officer Dylan Ely.
The Attorney General’s Office said Feriello deployed OC spray at Chin during the incident.
The Attorney General’s Office is conducting an investigation pursuant to the statutory requirement that it probe any death that occurs during an encounter with a law enforcement officer acting in the officer’s official capacity or while the decedent is in custody, and which establishes clear standards and procedures for conducting such investigations.
The investigation is ongoing.
Chin was raised in Voorhees, NJ and earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Rutgers University’s Cook College in 2000.
He became an IT Technical Lead for Merck right out of college and in 2017, joined Bristol Myers Squibb as an IT Business Process Analyst before being subsequently promoted to the role of IT Business Partner in 2020.
Chin and his wife, Susan, purchased the home in Hillsborough during the 2020 pandemic, and were married on June 26, 2021 in Bloomfield.
In his personal life, Chin was an avid board game enthusiast, belonging to the Princeton Board Games on the Casual Meetup Group. He adored both trivia and history and never stopped learning new things. Patrick also liked to challenge himself through obstacle course races (mostly Spartan Races) and eventually received over 30 medals.
His obituary said he is survived by his wife Susan, his mother Ann, his father Ti, his brother Victor, sister-in-law Melissa and his niece Valerie.
“When Patrick died, he died in the happiest state of his life,” Ann Chin, 74, told the Star-Ledge during a phone interview shortly after his death. “It’s just so hard for us to accept it. … I didn’t know what’s bothering him.”
“I think there was a mistake made somewhere,” Chin’s mother said. “Somebody made a mistake, a judgment error, or something. I just can’t comprehend someone went into the house and opened fire.”
His mother said Patrick Chin grew up in a high-achieving family. His parents, Taiwanese immigrants, both came to the U.S. as graduate students. He was born in 1978 in New Mexico, where his father worked as an engineer.
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