Shock at ma slay ‘She was just so bubbly and sweet’: neighbor
Pol’s brother has charges dropped
A Brooklyn woman police say was shot to death by her own son was a devout churchgoer who shared poetry and Bible verses with her neighbors.
Debra White, 63, was shot in the face Monday night in her second-floor apartment in the Sumner Houses on Park Ave. and Broadway in Bedford-Stuyvesant, cops said.
Her 43-year-old son was arrested a short time later after a friend he called alerted police.
Neighbors said said they were shocked over White’s death — and her alleged killer.
“She was a beautiful woman. It really impacted me,” said neighbor Josephine Medina, who often accompanied White to Fountain Christian Center on Marcus Garvey Blvd., where the victim worshiped. “I was really surprised. I never thought it would be her. People said he [the son] was nice.”
Friend Tiffany Perkins said White had addiction problems, but relied on her faith to turn her life around. Perkins said White used her experience to help others in the building who were struggling with addiction.
“She was really trying to uplift people in the building,” Perkins said. “She was just so bubbly and sweet. I’ve never seen her on a negative note, never seen the lady mad. She was an elder in the community, a person who lived by example. I’m flabbergasted. The sadness is real.”
Perkins said White talked her into taking a picture with her just several days ago.
“All that comes to my mind is her face when I said, ‘I don’t want to take a picture with you,’ and she said, ‘Come on, the only person who’s going to see it is me.’ That picture is sitting in her camera right now.”
Cops were still guarding the apartment a day after the murder.
Charges against the son, identified by police sources as Jason Argentina, were pending late Monday.
“She was quiet, we always said hi to each other,” said neighbor Rosaura Vargas. “I would be coming home and she would be going to church. She was a nice woman.”
“She always gave good insight,” said Lisa Shepherd, 57, another neighbor. “You couldn’t find nobody nicer.”
He said he’d get away with it — and he did.
The brawling brother of city Comptroller Scott Stringer was let off the hook by a Manhattan judge Tuesday, just as he predicted last year when he got in trouble for punching a patron in an Upper East Side sushi joint.
The misdemeanor assault charges against David Stringer were dropped after prosecutors told Judge Angela Badamo that they could not get in touch with Jonathan Hayes, who accused the 57-year-old real estate broker of slugging him twice in the face at Sushi Gamba on Second Ave. near 73rd St. in November.
But Hayes told the Daily News on Tuesday that prosecutors never bothered to reach out to him.
Hayes, 33, told The News in November that Stringer had drunkenly criticized waitstaff before turning on him.
Stringer hauled off and slugged Hayes twice, Hayes said.
Hayes said on Tuesday that he spoke with his lawyer about three weeks ago, and was under the impression that the case was moving forward.