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The blood has been mopped up. The tables are bustling again and the smell of Chinese food fills the air at Seaport Buffet, an unpretentious restaurant in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, where Asian and European immigrants gather to eat, sometimes bringing their own bottles of liquor.

But the trauma of what happened in this peaceful gathering spot on Jan. 15 has etched itself into the minds of the people who were there when a man, identified by the police as Arthur Martunovich, came in shortly after 5 p.m. with a hammer in his hand and bludgeoned three employees to death.

The triple killing has reverberated through Sheepshead Bay, leaving workers and customers struggling to recover from the events. Some local politicians have said that Mr. Martunovich, whose family is Russian by way of Estonia, had racist motives and should be charged with hate crimes.

Dermot Shea, the city’s chief of detectives, said on Wednesday that he expected Mr. Martunovich to be indicted soon. “We anticipate some kind of hate crime charges,” he said.