On the evening of May 4, 1982, Orhan Gündüz was shot dead while stopped in rush-hour traffic near Union Square in Somerville, Massachusetts. A lone man in a jogging suit approached Gündüz’s car, produced a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and opened fire, killing Gündüz instantly before fleeing. Six weeks earlier Gündüz’s Cambridge gift shop, Topkapi Imports, had been bombed and the group calling itself the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide issued an ultimatum demanding he resign as a Turkish honorary consul or be executed.

The Somerville Police and the FBI investigated; a composite sketch based on eyewitness accounts was circulated. A key witness who helped produce the sketch was later gunned down, and community fear reportedly hindered cooperation. Declassified FBI files identify a primary suspect described as a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and an instructor for JCAG, linked to a group called the LA Five who were later arrested in a separate consulate-bombing plot. No arrest was made in Gündüz’s murder and the case remains officially unsolved.