John Machajewski, a 24-year-old White male and Milwaukee police officer, was killed in the line of duty on December 23, 1981, after responding with Officer Charles S. Mehlberg to an armed robbery at Alfred’s House of Bourbon in Milwaukee. Shortly before midnight, a gunman entered the tavern, drank a beer, then grabbed a woman around the neck and held a gun to her head while announcing a robbery.
As the bartender emptied the cash register, the robber fired a shot toward a patron but did not hit anyone. He fled with approximately $200 in cash along with customers’ wallets and the woman’s purse.
Machajewski and Mehlberg arrived as the robber was escaping and spotted him running east on West Brown Street toward North 2nd Street. The officers got out of their squad car and pursued him on foot. The chase continued into an alley behind 210 West Brown Street, where the fleeing man positioned himself and ambushed the pursuing officers. Both officers were shot, with contemporaneous news accounts reporting that each suffered a gunshot wound to the head. Machajewski was mortally wounded. Milwaukee Police Department memorial records state that he died at the scene, while contemporaneous UPI reporting said he died approximately two hours after the shooting. Mehlberg was critically wounded and remained on life support before dying later that day.
The gunman was identified as 19-year-old Robert Lee Collins. After shooting the officers, Collins took Mehlberg’s. 38-caliber service revolver and fled from the alley. He was then armed with two handguns as he entered a residence on West Lloyd Street. A woman inside the residence contacted police, and officers quickly surrounded the house. Police repeatedly called for Collins to surrender, and approximately 45 minutes after the shootings he emerged with his hands raised and was taken into custody without further violence. Authorities said Collins already had a lengthy police record, and Milwaukee Police historical accounts state that a judge had described him in 1979 as a danger to the community.
Collins was initially held on $350,000 bail. Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann announced that Collins would face two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Machajewski and Mehlberg, along with three counts of armed robbery arising from the tavern holdup. He was ultimately convicted of murder and received two life sentences plus an additional 110 years of imprisonment.
Machajewski had served with the Milwaukee Police Department for approximately three and a half years. He was married, and his wife was three months pregnant when he was killed. His and Mehlberg’s deaths became a major event in Milwaukee, occurring amid already intense tensions involving the police department and city officials. Later on December 23, large numbers of Milwaukee police officers walked off the job in an illegal strike following controversy over public comments made in the aftermath of the shootings. The criminal case itself, however, ended with Collins being held responsible for the murders and receiving sentences intended to keep him imprisoned for the remainder of his life.
