Capt. Robert Melton was brought to the University of Kansas Hospital just before 2:30 p.m., but resuscitation efforts did not work, trauma surgeon James Howard said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. Our police and city officials will share information as it becomes available. She watched for a few minutes as paramedics worked on the officer.
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He first joined the Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Department before working with the Kansas City Police Department starting in 1999. He says the officer’s condition is unknown, but he tweeted “start prayers”.
Just 10 days earlier, a gunman in Dallas who killed five police officers had said he was angered by fatal police actions and wanted to kill officers, authorities said.
The Star reports this is the second police officer to be killed in Kansas City this year.
A resident at the Juniper Gardens apartment complex (pictured, Second Street and Edgerton Drive) called police at 1.33pm reporting that a auto full of people opened fire.
Officers chased a vehicle believed to be involved and when Capt. Robert Melton arrived, suspects shot and killed him, Zeigler said.
A vehicle driven by the suspected shooter or shooters took off as police arrived causing a chase that ended near 22nd Street and Haskell Avenue about three miles away.
Friends of Melton, who had been working as a police captain since May 2015, changed their Facebook profile pictures to a police badge with a black stripe through it. “I’m trying to find the words for it right now, I am just so angry about it right now”.
Police spokesman Cameron Morgan said other officers arrived on scene to find the Melton’s auto “in the middle of the street”.
Melton responded at 1:37 p.m. As the second officer pursued the other suspects and made contact with one of them at 1:57 p.m., multiple shots were fired, and the officer was hit.
City and federal law enforcement officers gathered at the scene.
Melton was a veteran who went to Afghanistan. Police are searching for at least one more suspect, Tomasic said. From 2007-2012, he was in the Kansas National Guard.
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Melton’s death comes at time when tensions between police departments and the communities they are pledged to protect are running high in cities across the country.
