There was the gunman pointing a revolver at the cowering cashier.
Not long after the suspects entered the bodega, a customer glanced through a store window and saw a gunman pointing a pistol at two men on the floor, the police said, and called 911.
The pop-pop of a.22-caliber pistol seemed unreal, even when he clearly saw the young gunman pointing the weapon and firing indiscriminately in his direction, recalled Mr. Cannon, standing in the same spot as on that day three months ago.
A former firearms trainer for the New York Police Department, who asked for anonymity because he maintained close ties with active-duty officers, said a situation like this one — an armed gunman pointing a weapon in proximity to a victim — was "the worst-case nightmare for cops".
At one point, Mr. Comey recalled, the gunman pointed a gun into Peter's ear and "told me if I moved, he'd blow his head off".
The gunman pointed the weapon at two people who tried to stop him, the police said, then drove off in a powder-blue Taurus.
No one was at the cash register, so the gunman pointed his gun at the handful of people at the counter, which included the two officers and Joseph Salemmo, a D.J. and a limousine driver, according to Mr. Salemmo.
Witnesses told investigators that moments after the shooting about 2 10 p.m. on West 39th Street, just steps from Fifth Avenue, the gunman pointed the pistol at his own head as he stood over the dead woman, a senior police official said.
In 1978, Domenico's father was killed shortly after sitting down to a backroom card game when the man across from him gave him the bacio della morte kiss of death and a masked gunman pointed a pistol at the back of his head and pulled the trigger twice.
