


A Manhattan teen was sentenced to 15 years in prison Wednesday for shooting a woman in the eye through the peephole of her apartment – in what prosecutors said was one of the “worst of the worst cases” they’ve seen.
Antjuan Smith, 19, shook nervously with his head down when Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Ann Thompson handed him his punishment for blasting Rena Gatewood in her Upper West Side apartment in 2021.
Assistant District Attorney Andrew Mercer called the shooting inside NYCHA’S Frederick Douglass Houses “malicious.”
“I would argue [this case] is no less than the worst of the worst cases that have come into this courthouse,” Mercer said.
Smith, then 17, was involved in a local gang that operated out of the Douglass Houses when he went to Gatewood’s door in an attempt to stop her and her family from cooperating with cops, prosecutors said.
Smith fired a single shot through the peephole that Gatewood, 37, was looking through, striking her in the left eye with her 1-year-old twins in the apartment and leaving her permanently blind in the eye, prosecutors said.
“The cruelty is unconscionable,” Mercer said about Smith’s intentions.
A jury found Smith guilty of attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon on May 19.
Defense attorney Elsie Chandler argued that there have been worse cases to come through the court — and that Smith should receive a lighter sentence closer to five years due to his age.
But Thompson called it “terrifying” to think one should question their safety inside their home with their children inside.
“It is not a stretch to say that when a person shoots through the peephole of a door that they do so intending to shoot the person on the other side,” Thompson told the court.
“It shocks the conscious that a 17-year-old child could commit such an act.”
Neither Gatewood, who survived the attack, or relatives for Smith were present in court.