Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

VIDEO: Shirtless Suspect Tells Nun, 'I Will Kill You,' NYPD Says

By  Trevor Kapp and Rachel Holliday Smith | July 6, 2017 7:53am | Updated on July 7, 2017 8:10am

PROSPECT HEIGHTS — Police on Thursday arrested a man for threatening to kill a Catholic nun while she prayed in a Brooklyn cathedral Wednesday, NYPD officials said.

Derrick Gadson, 56, was arrested for drug possession and harassment as a hate crime and was taken to Kings County Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation early Thursday morning, police said.

Gadson harassed the nun inside the Prospect Heights church Wednesday and told her “I will kill you,” police said.

He walked into the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph, on Pacific Street near Vanderbilt Avenue, around 2:30 p.m. as the 49-year-old nun was in a pew praying and told her: “I don’t believe in this because you don’t help poor people,” the NYPD said.

When she tried to ignore him, he told her to repeat what he’d said and then threatened her life, police said.

Gadson was described as about 6-foot-2, 200 pounds and bald with a medium complexion. He didn’t have a shirt on and was wearing khaki shorts during the incident.

Police patrol outside of the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph in Prospect Heights on Thursday, a day after a nun was threatened by a man inside the Catholic church. (Photo credit: DNAinfo/Rachel Holliday Smith)

The church was elevated to cathedral status in 2014, making it one of two sites recognized as the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.