[5] On Friday, August 24, 2012, at approximately 9:03 a.m. EDT, at the 33rd Street side of the Empire State Building, Jeffrey Johnson, a clothing designer who had been laid off, emerged from hiding behind a van, pointed a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun at a former co-worker's head, and fired one round.

He was laid off from his job as a women's apparel designer at Hazan Imports at 10 E. 33rd St. about a year prior to the shootings,[14] due to a downsizing of employees.

[5] He held his victim responsible for his resultant financial problems and police sources say he recently found out that he was being evicted from his apartment, which may have precipitated the shooting.

[15] Johnson was born in Japan in 1953 to a Japanese mother and American father and moved to the United States when he was 10 months old, where he grew up in Gainesville, Georgia.

[3][16] He had worked at the company for six years and lived alone in a walk-up apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side at the time of the attack.

He served in the United States Coast Guard from 1973 to 1977 and was honorably discharged with the rank of petty officer second class.

[5] Ercolino's brother, Paul, said that Steven never mentioned having any problems with a co-worker and described him, along with others that knew him, as a gregarious, outgoing family man.

The footage shows Johnson wearing a suit, holding a briefcase, and raising his handgun at the officers, who then responded with gunfire.

A second video was caught by an Australian tourist from street level, where officers are seen with weapons pointed at Johnson lying on his back, just after he was shot.