NEW YORK – A 240-years prison term was given to the man who took patrons of a bar in the East Village hostage, shooting three people, dousing 14 people with kerosene and threatening to kill them. On February 4th, a jury in New York State Supreme Court found Steve Johnson, 45, guilty of attempted murder, assault, kidnapping, and criminal possession of a weapon, as well as kidnapping in the second degree as a hate crime.

The incident happened on June 16, 2002. 

As proven at trial, Johnson armed himself with a loaded .380 caliber semiautomatic pistol, a .22 caliber semiautomatic pistol, a .22 caliber Derringer pistol, more than 100 rounds of ammunition, a sword, an expandable baton, a combustible accelerant, and two barbeque lighters. At about 2 a.m., the defendant approached a group of four people on the street near East 11th Street and Second Avenue and shot a man in the stomach. He also grabbed a woman standing nearby and attempted to drag her away at gunpoint, but she was able to escape.

The injured man staggered into a nearby bar on Second Avenue. JOHNSON followed him in, shot him a second time in the back, and ordered the patrons to the rear of the room. He forced one woman to tie up 14 other individuals, and then doused them with an accelerant. While shouting racial epithets, the defendant threatened to light his hostages on fire and said, in substance, that it was a good day to die.

“The 15 victims in this case have had to endure years of psychological terror as a result of being held captive, doused with kerosene, and, in some instances, shot by the defendant for nearly an hour,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. “This case is about perseverance – the perseverance of the victims who survived a horrific ordeal and displayed remarkable presence of mind under extreme pressure, and the perseverance of prosecutors who ensured that justice was served more than a decade later.”