On the morning of August 24, 2012, 41-year-old Steven Mario Ercolino was shot dead on a Midtown Manhattan sidewalk near the Empire State Building. Ercolino, a vice president of sales at Hazan Import Corporation and a State University of New York at Oneonta graduate, was described as a gregarious, outgoing family man. He was ambushed by a former co-worker, 58-year-old Jeffrey Johnson, who had been laid off about a year earlier and reportedly blamed Ercolino for his job loss. The two had filed harassment complaints against each other, and acquaintances said Johnson had threatened to kill Ercolino more than a year before the attack.

Johnson waited for Ercolino after 9 a.m., shot him multiple times at point-blank range with a .45-caliber handgun, then fired additional shots after Ercolino fell. A construction worker who witnessed the shooting alerted police, and when officers confronted Johnson he drew a weapon and was shot and killed by police. Nine bystanders were struck by stray bullets or ricocheting debris; none suffered life-threatening injuries.

Did anyone who knew either man notice the hostility between them before it turned deadly?