Robert Walsh was 36 and an off-duty New York City Police Department officer when he was killed after leaving work on the evening of January 12, 1981. He had been at the BVD Bar and Grill in Queens with a friend when a group of masked, armed robbers entered and began threatening patrons. Walsh drew his service weapon to intervene and was shot; one of the assailants approached him and fired a second, fatal shot.

Police identified the shooter as 16-year-old Richard Rivera and arrested five suspects within days, including teenagers aged 15 and 17 and a 23-year-old. The case went to trial and produced convictions in March 1982 for Rivera and two accomplices on charges of murder and robbery; the 15-year-old was adjudicated as a juvenile offender.

What details about that night or the bar’s clientele might help readers understand how the robbery turned deadly?