Ebbets Field Tenant President got a bullet shot in her door

terrible! so scary!


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/story/429990p-362509c.html

Bullet's message: Watch out

But tenant leader won't quit fight vs. drugs in Brooklyn

BY TAMER EL-GHOBASHY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

A Brooklyn tenant leader who has campaigned against drug dealers in her apartment complex got a frightening visitor this weekend: a bullet through her front door.
But Brenda Scott, the president of the Ebbets Field Houses Tenants Organization in Crown Heights, said she is undeterred and pledged to keep up her fight to make the sprawling complex safe for residents.

"Sure, I'm scared," Scott, 56, said yesterday.

"I don't want to die, but it's not going to stop me. I'm not doing anything wrong."

The close call came about 10:15 p.m. on Saturday. Scott, a recently retired second-grade teacher, was in her bedroom and heard a loud noise "that sounded like thick glass crackling."

When she came out, she saw a bullet hole in the front door of her 19th-floor apartment.

She said the bullet did not travel much farther than 3 feet - thanks to some simple financial planning.

"The heavy-duty penny jar in my front hallway stopped the bullet from going all the way through" into the apartment, said Scott, who became president of the tenants group in February.

Scott suspects she irked the drug dealers and users in the seven-building private complex when she began actively seeking more police patrols to crack down on the illicit activity.

Scott said she is sure the bullet wasn't a stray.

"Out of 1,319 apartments in the complex, it hit my door," she said. "The message is, 'Watch out.'"

Scott has been able to draw local elected leaders and police representatives to tenant meetings and has energized residents to attend in force, her supporters said.

"Brenda has done wonders over here," said City Councilwoman Letitia James (Working Families Party-Brooklyn).

"This was a message that she's too effective and was slowing down the drug trade," James added.

Scott, a longtime resident of the apartment complex built on the site of the storied Brooklyn Dodgers ballpark, has no plans tomove or stop her activism. But she is planning one big change in the immediate future.

"Now I'm scared to have my grandkids come to my apartment and I can't allow them to visit," she said.

"This shouldn't have happened and I shouldn't have to live like this."

Originally published on June 26, 2006