Ronald Stapleton was a 32-year-old New York City Police Officer who was killed after intervening in a robbery on the evening of Sunday, December 18, 1977. The attack happened in a parking lot of a tavern on Knapp Street in Brooklyn. Two assailants beat him with a meat hook, gouged out one of his eyes, and then used his service revolver to shoot him. He survived for about two weeks before dying of his wounds.

Stapleton left behind a wife and two children. The case remained unsolved for many years until a federal probe into a New York crime family identified the two men believed responsible. One suspect had died in 1996; the other was located and arrested in New Jersey and later convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. That same man was also later convicted in a separate 1982 Brooklyn killing, receiving an additional prison term.

Are there readers who remember the Knapp Street tavern or the 1977 investigation who can share details that might add to the record?