The bullet hit the brass button on officer Melchiona’s hat—driving that button into his brain.

PBA delegate Henry Melchiona sat in Donovan’s Pub with Brother Transit cops Joe Corcoran and Patty McDonald. It was February 28th, 1970, their day off, but they met to discuss a vital job issue.

The radio in the bar erupted with a bulletin: Transit cop shot and killed, city cop critically wounded in Manhattan. Henry was a delegate in Transit Police District 11, the Bronx. This role authorized him to learn the officer’s name. All he needed was to call Transit Police Headquarters at Jay St, Brooklyn.

After identifying himself to an officer at Headquarters, he heard the officer call out, “Hey, Sarge, I got his brother on the line.” When the officer realized what he had just done, he instantly apologized to Henry. Henry said he heard the officer’s voice breaking up as he apologized. He felt bad for the officer.

Yes, the bullet tore across Broadway and hit the brass button that killed Mike Melchiona. But the bullet didn’t stop. Deadly bullets never do.

It continued across the 59th St Bridge into Queens and Donovan’s Pub. There, it spun Henry Melchiona into an orbit of grief.

As Henry’s buddies later said, he walked in circles for several minutes as they got more information on the phone.

A police car soon took Henry to his parent’s home at 53rd St. and Skillman Ave. Henry broke the news to his mom and, as mothers do when their hearts are pierced by a son-killing bullet, she cried with tears from her soul.

Just then, the phone rang. In some parts of the Melchiona family, the day’s happiness was not yet torn apart. Shirley, Mike’s wife, was calling to ask her mother-in-law what she’d wear at the wedding shower for Mike’s sister Anne that night. She gasped that she had laryngitis and couldn’t talk at the moment. They’d talk later.

Henry said, “I then went and told my wife.” As Henry spoke, I heard his voice tighten when he said, “She broke down.”

Henry went with a sergeant and a priest to inform Mike’s wife, Shirley. Shirley stood with her baby, Cheri, in her arms, the baby born exactly one month prior.

Shirley kept the surprise visit light. Henry said, “She said, ‘What are you doing here? Your brother would kill you if he knew you were here and I was in my pajamas.'” The bullet had not yet torn her heart, her happiness—asunder.

Henry repeatedly asked Shirley to give him the baby, but she refused. Finally, she asked, “Why is there a cop and a priest here?”

As Henry spoke about that day, he clearly relived the pain; people of empathy will do that. He said to me, “I’m sorry. It still bothers me to this day to talk about it. I told her, ‘Mike was involved in a shootout in Manhattan. He was shot, Shirley.’ She said, ‘How bad is he?’ I said, ‘He didn’t make it, Shirley.'”

The bullet finally ripped through the mother’s heart as she stood holding her baby.

All was bright that February 28th, in the winter of 1970. The baby’s hair would have smelled fresh and sweet in that Woodside home. A wedding shower was to take place that night.

Henry told me, choking again, “Shirley said, ‘Could you people please go away? Everything was fine until you walked into my home.’ “She apologized later. She didn’t mean it; it was just a reaction.”

Shirley simply wanted the day to be the way it was before the bullet came through her doorway.

Henry stayed until other family members arrived, then left to inform his six siblings, all in Woodside. The Melchionas were always a close-knit family.

Mike Melchiona worked as a Transit Police Officer in Midtown Manhattan’s District 1 for five years. That fateful day, a fellow officer asked Mike to switch posts. Mike agreed to take the post of 50th St. and Broadway on the IRT. 

One can only speculate what initiated the events at the 50th St. and Broadway station, but an investigation revealed to Henry the details of his brother’s killing:

In routine patrol, Mike would have knocked on the door of the ladies’ room with his nightstick, announcing, “Police Inspection. Is anyone in there?” Without response, he would enter to see if all was well.

There, he would have found a male in the woman’s toilet. The male might have been smoking. When asked for ID, the male pulled a Luger-style pistol on Mike. He then walked behind Mike, pistol-to-head, to the station’s exit.

In front of the token booth, the male ordered Mike down on the station floor. He knew the holster’s safety release and pulled the revolver out.

The male then fled to the busy streets of midtown Manhattan—with two guns.

Mike Melchiona ran after him—unarmed.

The male crossed bustling Broadway. Mike called out, “Get down, get down, he’s got a gun.” He shouted to the Officer directing traffic, Donald Endonino, “Look out, he’s got a gun.” Endonino headed for the male as Mike pushed a woman and her child to the sidewalk. 

The male entered a cab, and as Mike stood up from the woman and child, the male fired. Mike Melchiona went down.

The male shot the fleeing cab driver in the arm. He shot the approaching officer Endonino in the throat.

Officer Endonino, holding his bleeding throat, emptied his revolver through the window above the trunk. Two more officers arrived and fired through the cab’s side and windows. The male died, pierced with twenty-two bullets.

On March 5th, 1970, I stood in the police funeral formation. Mourning bagpipe wails met the rumbling of the el’s number 7 train. I remember its rolling thunder and its horn’s long blasts, an overhead tribute to the fallen Transit cop.

The formation was in front of Woodside’s Saint Sebastian Church, across the street from Donovan’s Pub. St. Sebastian’s held many Melchiona ceremonies: first communions, christenings, weddings, and funerals. But this ceremony was like no other.

When I stood in that 1970 formation, I was just twenty-nine, a year older than Mike Melchiona. He had two children at home, as did I.

On February 28, 2025, Henry Melchiona observed the fifty-fifth anniversary of his brother’s death with a Memorial Mass at St. Sebastian’s church. Of course, the el still rumbled as it did fifty-five years ago, and Donovan’s Pub still stands. Its back room is filled with memorials honoring Mike Melchiona and many other Police Officers and Firefighters.

Inside St. Sebastian’s, the front row held NYPD’s Transit Bureau officers.

A group of no longer twenty-nine-year-old retirees sat behind uniformed cops, still fighting the good fight. Still trying to get home to their families.

A piper from NYPD’s War Pipe Band echoed the skirls of those of fifty-five years ago

The memorial was honored by the presence and words of high-ranking officers. Henry especially appreciated the presence of Stephanie Diller, widow of Police Officer Jonathan Diller, killed March 25, 2024; he too was involved in routine police duty, a traffic stop, and he too had a young son:

A police Honor Guard lent added reverence to the Mass.

Msgr. Robert Romano, Retired Transit Police Officer’s Chaplain, spoke, as did other attendees. But it was, as always, the words of Henry Melchiona that carried like verbal bullets. He talked about his brother’s—and other officers’—deaths. His words reverberated off the marble and oak facades of the church.

In my interview with Henry, he related again some of the horrific deaths in our Transit Police history. He has a remarkable memory for details—no matter the passage of time:

Lloyd Ennis, June 16, 1967. Lloyd, in the enforcement of the most minor of laws, asked a train rider to pull his legs back from the aisle. After a repeat of the request, the male grabbed the nightstick from Officer Ennis and beat him severely with it. Lloyd managed to get one round off from his revolver, hitting the male in his testicles. Both Lloyd and the male were hospitalized, Officer Ennis, the longest.

At a court appearance by the male, the judge said he had suffered enough and released him. The male responded that he’d kill the officer for what he had done. One day, Officer Ennis, waving to his family from his car, left for work. The male shot and killed him.

John Skagen, June 28, 1972. Officer Skagen, off duty, came upon a token booth holdup. While struggling to arrest the male, the token booth clerk called for backup. The responding officers went down the stairs as the male ran up them. He told them, “There’s a maniac with a gun down there.” The officers shot and killed Officer Skagen.

Irving Smith, February 28th, 1980, NYC Transit Police Officer Irving Smith. On February 28th, 1980, Officer Smith attended the tenth-anniversary memorial of Officer Mike Melchiona’s death. Irving then attended the burial of Transit Police Officer Stephen Calabrese who was shot and killed on Feb 24*. Later, Officer Smith went to a bar to cash his check. Two males, one with a pistol, the other a shotgun, held up the bar. Irving pulled his weapon and fired, hitting both, killing one before he succumbed to their gunfire.

*Stephan Calabrese Feb 24, 1980. Officer Calabrese attempted to arrest a fare evader at Columbus Circle Station in Manhattan. The male managed to wrest Officer Calabrese’s gun from his holster and killed him with it. The fare was fifty cents.

At the time of his brother’s death, Henry Melchiona was in great shape. He was reassigned as a Physical Fitness instructor at the Transit Police Academy. After two years, he attended the FBI’s Firearms Training School and became a Certified Range Instructor.

Henry said that because of the death of his brother, Mike, he was diligent about preparing officers for safe patrol. Henry still has family that serves in harm’s way. His son Jimmy is a detective in Suffolk County, NY.

After ten years on the range, Henry said, “The Chief asked me to start a K-9 unit.” It was the first K-9 unit in NYC. He obtained dogs from the pound, then vetted and trained them for subway patrol.

If Mike Melchiona had not switched posts with his brother officer, the inspection pattern likely would have changed. That officer might have arrived at that women’s toilet before or after the male was there. We will never know what citizen would have been killed by that bullet. Or whose family members would feel its relentless impact. Mike Melchiona and his family took that bullet. Many other officers and families took bullets, too—so that our families can be safe.

These officers patrol the subways, the streets, the highways, and the high-rise dwellings to protect us all. They meet those bent on causing injury and death. They risk those encounters so others across America do not open their doors to a bullet’s path.

Unlike today’s line-of-duty deaths, Michael’s wife, Shirley, received no pension, health coverage, or benefits. She was left only with Social Security for her children, Michael, Jr. and Cheri. The family moved back to Biloxi, Mississippi, where she had met Michael when he was in the Air Force.

I called Michael Melchiona Jr. in Mississippi; he is now fifty-seven.

Michael said life without his dad was a struggle. He said, “My mother took care of us; she never remarried. She told us she had the best of the best, and nobody else would have measured up.”

Michael said he appreciates the memorials for his dad. He said, “I think it’s a wonderful thing. It instills on me how much the police department remembers; they honor their own.”

Michael’s mom, Shirley Melchiona died on Oct.1, 2001.

Her daughter, Cheri, died on March 6th, 2025. Shirley held Cheri in her arms one horrific day. Cheri died while I was writing this essay about that day in her mother’s arms.

May they all rest in well-deserved peace.

Be well,

Lee,

shedding a little light where the sun don’t shine.

Please see my sunny side blog, Leebythesea.