You Win Some, You Lose Some

Ganas, the Staten Island commune profiled by New York Magazine back in April, is in the news again after a former resident shot one of its founders on Monday:

A former New Brighton woman waged a campaign of stalking and harassment against activist Jeff Gross, the co-founder of the commune she once lived in, before finally shooting him three times on the steps of his Corson Avenue home Monday night, police said.

Now cops are hunting the woman, Rebekah Johnson — who police sources say has ambushed Gross before with a camera, and has made several baseless claims about him after she was twice kicked out of the Ganas commune years ago. And the commune’s members now fear that Ms. Johnson may come after them next.

“We truly believe that we’re being targeted,” said one of the group’s members, a 46-year-old man who asked that his name be withheld because he fears for his safety.

Gross — who was in critical but stable condition in St. Vincent’s Hospital in West Brighton yesterday — had described Ms. Johnson to detectives as “crazy, but not dangerously crazy” after the earlier incidents, according to one law enforcement source.

“Guess she proved him wrong,” the source said.

Police sources describe Ms. Johnson as white, heavyset, in her 40s, and “armed and extremely dangerous.”

. . .

On Sunday, Gross was on his way home from Manhattan, where he saw the Al Gore movie “An Inconvenient Truth” with a group of friends, said one Ganas member who asked not to be identified.

He said goodbye, and walked back to his house from farther up the road, the friend said.

“Next thing I know, I heard the gunshots,” he said.

Dont’ worry — the plot is already penciled in for next season’s Law & Order.