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Fatal Encounters record · Independent third-party dataset

Gregory Melvin

October 16, 2002 · Galloway, Atlantic County

Details as recorded

Every value below is shown exactly as Fatal Encounters recorded it.[1]

Name as recorded
Gregory Melvin
Age as recorded
26
Gender as recorded
Male
Race as reported
Race unspecified
Date of the injury resulting in death
October 16, 2002
Location as recorded
Galloway, Atlantic County701 Lindbergh Ave Galloway NJ 08205 Atlantic
Highest level of force as recorded
Drowned

Where the dataset places it

The location Fatal Encounters recorded for this death: Galloway, Atlantic County

The marked point is the dataset's own geocoded location for this record, as recorded. Every other New Jersey record in the dataset is shown in gray. A point on a map is where a death was recorded, not a finding about anyone.

Agencies as recorded

Agency or agencies involved, as recorded: Egg Harbor Township Police Department

An agency appears here because it appears in the record's as-reported agency field, nothing more. Its presence is not a claim of fault or responsibility.

Department pages (matched by this site at high confidence)

The source's account

Fatal Encounters' description of the incident, verbatim. This is the source project's own third-party narrative, not this site's reporting.

Gregory Melvin drowned after leading police on a 20-minute car chase that began in Linwood and ended four towns to the north. Police were chasing him because of a purse theft. He jumped off the Nacote Creek Bridge.

Source reported by Fatal Encounters: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k2cN583U0vZtei1PgpCrDwdyoF_PZEUOM4NwK8AIq_0/edit?usp=sharing (external link, as recorded in the dataset).

If you are a family member of the person named here, or represent one, and something in this record is wrong, or you want the record removed, requests go through the corrections page. Every request is checked against the source record.

This is one of 22 New Jersey records the dataset dates to 2002, and one of 22 it holds for Atlantic County across 2000 to 2021. Browse every New Jersey Fatal Encounters record by year.

Records from the same county and year

Questions and answers

What does the Fatal Encounters dataset record about this incident?

Fatal Encounters records that Gregory Melvin died on October 16, 2002 in Galloway, Atlantic County, with "Drowned" as the highest level of force. Fatal Encounters is an independent, crowdsourced dataset of deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind; a record is not a finding of fault or misconduct.

Which agency or agencies were recorded as involved?

The record's agency field reads "Egg Harbor Township Police Department". Presence in that field means the agency appears in the record as reported, nothing more; it is not a claim of fault or responsibility by any officer or agency.

Where did this happen?

The record places the death in Galloway, Atlantic County, on October 16, 2002. The address as recorded is 701 Lindbergh Ave Galloway NJ 08205 Atlantic.

Sources

  1. [1]Fatal Encounters, New Jersey subset. Fatal Encounters (fatalencounters.org). Row 28932. Derived from the public Fatal Encounters national dataset (coverage 2000-2021; collection ended December 2021), https://fatalencounters.org/. Retrieved July 10, 2026. ↩