Candidate Terrified by Firebomb : Crime: Molotov cocktail does not explode, but follows by a week shots into home of La Habra activist Dorothy Rush.

LA HABRA —  A Molotov cocktail crashed through the bedroom window of a La Habra City Council candidate early Friday in an apparent attempt to set fire to her house in the Grace/Pacific neighborhood, police said.

The firebomb did not explode but was still lit when authorities found it on Dorothy Rush’s bed shortly after 2 a.m.

Rush, 60, was not in the room when the device--a beer bottle filled with gasoline and plugged with a cloth--crashed through her window and landed on her bed. She and her husband, Larry, 62, were uninjured.

The incident is the second in as many weeks in which unidentified attackers have struck Rush’s house, La Habra Police Officer Cindy Knapp said. The home was also the target of two separate attacks earlier this year.

“Someone’s trying to kill me,” said Rush, a retired dress maker who gained notoriety over the past several years because of her public fight to get rid of gangs and blight in parts of the neighborhood.

Last week, police said someone sprayed her Grace Avenue home with gunfire, puncturing walls and knocking out windows.

“I’m scared and I don’t know why this is happening. If they don’t want me to run for the council, they’re defeating their purpose because they’re just giving me publicity,” said Rush, who has been prodding the city for years to enact strict parking and property maintenance laws.

Knapp said detectives believe the two recent incidents are related but don’t know if they involve gangs.

No arrests have been made in either case, Lt. John Buchholz said.

Police found 9-millimeter bullet slugs inside Rush’s home after the Sept. 1 shooting, which occurred about 6:10 a.m. Neighbors said they saw a man fire at the home while riding in the bed of a faded red pickup truck with a white camper shell, Buchholz said.

That wasn’t the first time Rush’s home was targeted in a drive-by shooting.

Gunshots fired in February shattered a living room window. The attackers also scribbled the name of a neighborhood gang on the front of her house, Rush said.

In April, cinder blocks were hurled into Rush’s bedroom and living room windows, one hitting her on the back as she slept, another grazing cat and a third shattering a dresser mirror.

Since Rush began a Neighborhood Watch program, graffiti usually appears on her driveway after each monthly meeting of the group. She said she organized area residents in an effort to persuade police to step up patrols in her area.

Rush also founded the Grace/Pacific Community Assn. last year to get tenants to maintain their properties and get landlords to evict those who do not.

Some of those neighbors have accused her of meddling and blamed her for their evictions.

“Because she’s active in the community, she has, unfortunately, made some people unhappy,” Knapp said.

Knapp said police patrols have been stepped up in Rush’s Grace/Pacific neighborhood.

Police urge anyone with information to telephone Detectives Mel Ruiz or Jose Quirarte at (310) 905-9683 or leave word on the department’s anonymous tip line: (310) 905-9611.

“Somebody wants me out of here, but I’m not going anywhere,” Rush said. “For some reason, they really hate me and all I’m doing is trying to clean up the neighborhood. . . . It’s no fun, but if (her attackers) really got a gripe, tell me what it is and maybe there’s something we can work out.”