Paulette's diary (3): The gun attack
Paulettec
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HARASSMENT DIARY, by Paulette Cooper (1982)
Part 3: The Gun Incident
My 1997 editorial comments are enclosed in [[double square brackets]].
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The really horrible harassment started around October of that
year, when I received the most incredibly vile anonymous smear letter
based on lies of the type typically made by Scientology of their
enemies (prostitute, thief, sexual pervert), and some gross
distortions of information known to the former boyfriend who had tried
to get me into Scientology in 1968.
From around October to December 15th (when I was later to
move), there was also a tremendous amount of personal harassment. I
was getting a number of obscene calls (only when I saw the Washington
documents years later did I learn that the Scientologists had put my
name and phone number on walls, graffiti style), nuisance calls (one
day as many as 11, which obviously made it hard to write, people
visitng my apartment late at night trying to get in, etc. I was
starting to get quite frightened.
My distant cousin Joy slept at her boyfriend's apartment a
couple of blocks away, but kept her things at my apartment and dropped
by after work each day. On December 6th, a mysterious girl named
Margie Shepherd came by with a petition for me to sign supporting the
United Farm Workers. I gave her a small check. She stayed about a
half hour. (Joy and her boyfriend were there part of the time) and
asked me for a drink of water. She wasn't alone very long, and I didn
t realize the significance of the following until more than a year
later. But when Joy came over to my place after work, she would write
her mother in California on airmail stationery. I never looked at the
blank stationery itself, but was always annoyed that she would keep it
on the coffee table. So after she left each day, I would toss her
coffee table items on her couch. Margie was sitting next to that
table.
Anyway, I had begn [[SIC]] to realize that because of the
Scientology harassment I needed to move to a safer place. I lived on
the ground floor of a brown- stone in a building without a doorman.
Although I really couldn't afford to do it yet, I decided to extend
myself and move to the building which had always been my dream
apartment building (where I still live to this day.)
By this time, I was already starting to go into a bad time
emotionally because of the smear letter, the harassing calls, the
inexplicable attempts by people to get into my apartment, etc. My
relationship with my boyfriend of the past few years, Bob.... was also
getting rocky. Although it had been serious until around October, Bob
did not like the harassment that was going on, and especially the fact
that I was letting it get to me.
On December 19th, 4 days after I secretly moved here, and Joy
took over the old apartment (but hadn't put her name on the door yet),
a young black man came to my door (then Joy's but he wouldn't have
known that and Joy, like me then, was a slender short-haired mostly
brunette). He rang the bell as if checking if someone was home. A
black man in that neighborhood was highly unusual, but Joy was still
not suspicious when a second black man came by, about 15 minutes
later, and rang "my" bell holding flowers. When Joy opened the door,
he unwrapped the "flowers"--which were just a few twigs on top to hide
a gun.
He put the gun at her head, cocked the trigger, and the gun
was either empty or misfired. He then began choking her, but she
managed to break away and start screaming so he fled. The attack was
reported to the police (who commented on its mysteriousness). When I
heard about it later, I was almost as frightened about it as Joy was
(although incredibly, Bob didn't understand why I should be upset over
it.)