Joseph Colombo, a 54-year-old Italian-American, was shot on June 28, 1971, at the second Italian Unity Day rally in Columbus Circle, an event he organized. As he prepared to speak, a man identified as Jerome A. Johnson, posing as a photographer, approached and shot Colombo three times in the head and neck. Colombo survived the initial attack but was left in a near–total paralyzed, semi-comatose state and never fully recovered; he died at St. Luke’s Hospital in Newburgh, New York, on May 22, 1978, with the death attributed to cardiac arrest brought on by his prior injuries.

After the shooting, the crowd subdued Johnson, who was then shot and killed by an unidentified person while in the grasp of bystanders; that killing remains unsolved. The NYPD concluded Johnson was a lone gunman, but contemporaneous speculation tied the attack to mob rivalries, with figures such as Joe Gallo and Carlo Gambino suggested by some within the Colombo family—though no evidence ever linked them and no arrests were made.

Are there eyewitness accounts or overlooked details from that rally that could shed light on who fired the fatal shot at Johnson?