Melvin Stanley.
Melvin Stanley was shot dead Sunday in a parking lot — more than six years after he had been shot in the face and survived.
The fatal shooting occurred in the lot of the Presidential Gardens housing complex at 160 Hazel St. shortly before 4 p.m.
Officers found Stanley, who went by the nickname “Mizz,” in the back passenger seat of a car parked there. He’d been shot and was unresponsive. He was taken by ambulance to Yale New Haven Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 4:17 p.m. He was 30 years old.
“An unknown male” reportedly came to the back of the parked car and fired two shots inside.
Police are investigating the incident.
The earlier shooting that Stanley survived occurred at the Hamden Deli on Dixwell Avenue in Hamden in May 2015. Some time after 11 that night, he was shot in the face, head and neck. He was in critical condition, but survived the incident, losing sight in one eye.
His uncle, Ty Sullivan, told the Independent Sunday evening that Melvin was trying to straighten out his life.
“He was a young man that made his share of mistakes growing up but has shown growth in recent times. I believe he was heading in the right direction as a man and a young father of twins,” Sullivan stated.
“He was also expecting a baby boy and just had a gender reveal yesterday.”
Sullivan said the family is seeking privacy to grieve at the moment. He expressed “trust in the New Haven PD that justice will be served.”
Stanley’s troubles were “preordained” long before that, his attorney once argued in a sentencing brief submitted to a federal judge in 2017.
The attorney, Alexander Schwartz, described how Stanley “spent his formative years without a father figure.” His father was in prison when Stanley was born, and stayed there until Stanley was 9. They never developed a bond. Melvin and his four half siblings were sent to live with an aunt, who also had her own child to raise as well.
Stanley “grew up in a rough neighborhood” in New Haven and had a “chaotic” home life, the attorney informed the judge. The state Department of Children and Families was “involved in Melvin’s life” beginning when he was 9. “Melvin had ADHD and failed at school,” the attorney stated, “so he did what came naturally to him in his environment. He ran the street.”
The attorney called it “not surprising” that Stanley offered a “positive description” of the time he had spent behind bars. In state prison, Schwartz related, Stanley “received his GED on September 5, 2013, and read ‘a lot of books.’”
Schwartz was representing Stanley at the time on a charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Stanley pleaded guilty to the charge. He had previously served time in state prison for first-degree robbery and assault of a corrections employee.
“Melvin Stanley’s life preordained his appearance for sentencing on these charges,” Schwartz wrote to the judge. The feds arrested Stanley in this case a month after he was released from the hospital connected to his 2015 shooting.
Schwartz appealed for leniency, saying Stanley was eager to turn his life around, to overcome the odds against him.
“Looking back, he recognizes that his life was fruitless and hopes to make more of himself now. He understands the importance of education and job training. He is young enough to learn a trade or profession and lead a productive life off the streets. He is interested in gaining a college education and future employment as a radiation technician. He is very interested in the science fields, especially biology and astronomy.”
“Melvin,” the attorney continued, “is young enough to learn a trade and have a productive life. He appears bright and highly motivated to avoid the pitfalls of street gang life and work hard to improve his situation both by education and job training that will lead to a career, not just a job doing unskilled labor.”
The judge, Stefan R. Underhill, sentenced Stanley to 15 months in federal prison, counting time he had already served, followed by three years of supervised release.
In March 2021, the feds arrested Stanley again for violating the conditions of his supervised release: New Haven police arrested him on numerous charges, including alleged assault and threatening.
He served some time again, then was recently released. The new state charges were pending at the time of his death.
23rd Homicide Of Year
Stanley’s is the 23rd homicide of 2021.
In January, Alfreda Youmans, 50, and Jeffrey Dotson, 42, were found dead by the police inside a Winthrop Avenue apartment, Jorge Osorio-Caballero, 32, was shot and killed in Fair Haven, Marquis Winfrey, 31, was shot and killed in Newhallville, and Joseph Vincent Mattei, 28, was shot and killed in the Hill. Someone shot Kevin Jiang, 26, to death in Goatville on Feb. 6. Angel Rodriguez, 21, was shot to death in Fair Haven in mid-February, his body dumped by the Mill River in East Rock. Dwaneia Alexandria Turner, 28, was shot to death in the Hill on March 16 during an argument with two other women.
On March 26, Alessia Mesquita was shot dead in Fair Haven. Then 20-year-old Mariyah Inthirath was killed Saturday, May 15, on Sheffield Avenue and Jack Hopeton was killed near Orchard and George on Tuesday, May 18. On May 19, Tashawn Brown was shot dead across from Edgewood Park. On May 26, 34-year-old Adrian Barwise was shot inside a Sherman Parkway house during an apparent argument over a game, according to police. Miguel Ramos, 37, was shot dead on Springside Avenue on June 6.
Richard Whitaker Jr. was shot to death on Columbus Avenue in the Hill on June 15 — after having watched a gunman shoot his brother dead in the neighborhood the previous August.
On July 10, someone shot and killed Kevan Bonilla, 20, on Lombard Street in Fair Haven. Kevin Mills, 33, was shot to death on Dixwell Avenue on Aug. 10.
Tyshaun “TyTy” Hargrove, 14, was shot to death on Chatham Street on Aug. 25.
Thirty-year-old Zaire Luciano was shot and killed in the Annex early in the morning of Sept. 6.
Luis Fernando Gonzalez-Sandoz, 45, was shot to death in Fair Haven the night of Sept. 7.
If stanley's fate was "pre-ordained", as his attorney argued, then all programs offered to help youths stay on a good path are either wasted or wrong. I have no answer as to what will make up for a disordered home life and apparently, neither do the professionals and that is tragic. But who didn't really know that the lack of a strong family and community structure are so deadly?
So, Stanley was a "dead man walking" all his life, as the movie title said.
Some people can overcome their circumstances. This man could not, apparently.