The Guardian Angels were on a night-time patrol among the brown-brick projects of the Dayton neighborhood in the south ward of Newark, New Jersey. The volunteer crime fighters had stopped at 100 Ludlow Street, a 15-story apartment building a few blocks from the airport, to fix a leak for an elderly resident. But their primary focus, in a community riddled with drugs and violence, was crime prevention. When they heard a loud crash from the street below, the ten-man patrol rushed outside to investigate.
Wearing distinctive red berets, red windbreakers, and white Guardian Angels emblem T-shirts, they rounded the apartment block and hurried through the dark into Van Vechten Street. Ahead of them, the Angels saw a police presence outside the flat-roofed People’s Tavern. It was 11 PM on a cold and clear night, December 30, 1981.