Man Arrested in Threats Against Nun at Brooklyn Church: Police

Police Thursday arrested a Brooklyn man in connection with a nun's life being threatened in a church. 

Derrick Gadson, 56, is charged with aggravated harassment - hate crime - and criminal possession of a controlled substance, police said. Gadson has a lengthy criminal background, law enforcement sources said. 

Police said they saw a Gadson drinking liquor in the open on the corner of Parkside and Flastbush avenues and approached him. They said they discovered he open warrants. 

He was also in the possession of a crack pipe, which had residue, police said. During the investigation, officials learned he was the man wanted in connection with threatening the nun and officially charged him, authorities said.

The news comes just a day after Sister Maria Amador was threatened by a man at a church in Prospect Heights. Police were investigating the incident as a possible hate crime. 

Amador was praying in a pew around 2 p.m. Wednesday at Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph on Pacific Street, when the man, allegedly Gadson, approached her.

“I don’t believe in this because you don’t help the poor,” the man told her, according to police. When the nun didn’t respond, he said: “What did I say?”

Amador began to look toward a woman in another pew when the man said: “She can’t help you. I’m going to kill you,” according to authorities. 

She ran away and screamed, “Help me! Help me! Help me!”

Amador says she stayed quiet out of fear of provoking him, but he ultimately threatened her.

“He got angrier and he came up to me more, and I said, “Something very dangerous is happening here.”

Gadson ran away when another church employee came to help, police said. Surveillance video captured the encounter between him and the nun. 

“She’s targeted why? Because she’s in a habit, because she’s a religious person,” said Monsignor Kieran Harrington.

Despite escaping a potentially dangerous situation, the nun says she has no anger towards Gadson.

“I welcome him,” she said. “Because he is my brother, because he is my faith. In my faith, my example is Jesus Christ.”