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On December 30, 1981, Frank Melvin, a member of the crime prevention organization Guardian Angels, was shot and killed in Newark, New Jersey, by Newark Police officer Melvin Medina.

Background
Melvin was a member of the Guardian Angels, a nationwide crime prevention organization founded by Curtis Sliwa in 1979. The Angels' chapter in Newark, New Jersey, consisted of 45 members by the end of 1981. Melvin, who was 26 at the time of his death, was a graduate of Newark Tech High School and worked as a security guard for a cemetery in Newark and as a construction worker. His brother Fred worked for the Newark Police Department (NPD). Melvin had three sons, including one (Francisco) who was living with his mother from an earlier marriage, and two (Frank, Jr., and Michael) with Sandra Melvin, his wife at the time of his death.

Shooting
Shortly before 11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (UTC−05:00) on December 30, 1981, NPD officers Milton Medina and Angel Ramos were summoned to investigate a possible burglary at a tavern on Van Vechten Street. After residents of the Dayton Projects, a housing project for seniors across the street, alerted Medina and Ramos of activity atop the tavern, Medina stopped a truck that was passing by and climbed it to gain access to the building's roof. There, he reported discovering "several burglar tools" and a hole in the tavern's roof.

Meanwhile, a ten-member patrol of Guardian Angels, led by Melvin, was aiding a resident of the Dayton Projects across the street whose apartment had flooded. The patrol reported hearing a crash and hurried outside to find its source, with Melvin in the lead.

Accounts of what happened next varied. By the Angels' account, there were six officers at the tavern; they stopped Melvin who was wearing the Guardian Angel uniform (a red windbreaker and red beret). As Melvin attempted to open his windbreaker to show off his Guardian Angels T-shirt, a sergeant with badge number 891 on the ground shot him once in the heart at a range of 15 ft. An unnamed resident of the housing projects who witnessed the killing relayed similar information about the incident, including that one of the five officers on the ground shot Melvin and that before doing so, the shooter referred to Melvin with a racial slur. By the Newark Police Department's account, relayed the next day by its director Hubert Williams, there was no officer with badge number 891 at the scene. According to the NPD, Medina heard the sound of shouting and a whistle blowing and saw Melvin running towards Ramos "in a very threatening manner". Medina, who believed Milton was being chased by the nine Angels trailing him, twice ordered him to stop running and then shot him once. Other police officers who quickly arrived on the scene administered first aid to Melvin. The Guardian Angels stated that the other members of Melvin's patrol were barred from giving him CPR on the scene.

Melvin was taken to College Hospital in Newark where he died in the early morning hours of December 31.

Aftermath
On the day after police killed Melvin, Sliwa and other members of the local Angels held a press conference on the steps of the Newark City Hall. There, Sliwa called Melvin's killing a "cold-blooded murder" and Bruce McGaheran, one of the Angels who had been patrolling with Melvin, recounted for the press the events of the previous night. That same day, Williams ordered an investigation of the shooting and Medina was taken off patrol duty.

Investigation
On January 1, Ann Santoro, wife of Essex County medical examiner Thomas Santoro, told the press that Melvin's autopsy revealed that the bullet that killed Melvin entered his body from "an angle", supporting the NPD's narrative of a shooter on the tavern roof rather than on a level plane with Melvin.

Melvin was the first Guardian Angel to be being killed by a police officer and the second to die in service of the organization's mission after 18-year-old Malcolm Brown was killed attempting to stop a mugging in Brooklyn in July 1980.