Ivan Lorenzo, 29, an off-duty NYPD narcotics detective, was shot dead in the Bronx shortly before 2:00 a.m. on May 5, 1971. He had been celebrating at a birthday and a reunion for The Lions softball team and, after a woman friend entered the Sun Bright Bar to use the restroom, returned with two male companions to confront a man who had reprimanded her. That man, identified as Harry Richardson, shot Lorenzo point-blank in the chest; Lorenzo tried to draw his own weapon but was mortally wounded. Richardson then forced Lorenzo’s friends to the back of the bar and fled with the detective’s off-duty revolver.

Investigators found a large quantity of heroin in the bar kitchen, and authorities theorized Richardson, described as a heroin dealer, may have panicked and believed Lorenzo was on duty. Richardson remained at large for three years before being arrested in Los Angeles on May 13, 1974, and later convicted of first-degree manslaughter on December 12, 1975. Lorenzo, a six-year police veteran, was survived by his wife and two children.

Does anyone have memories of the Sun Bright Bar or the neighborhood around East 174th Street in the Bronx from that period that could shed light on the case?