Mother Arrested in Drive-by Shooting : Violence: Woman allegedly fired at boys in schoolyard after her son says was robbed by gang members.

The mother of a 14-year-old suspected gang member was arrested Thursday after she drove by George Washington Carver Junior High School and shot at members of a rival gang who she believed had bullied her son, police said.

No one was hurt in the 7:50 a.m. incident on a school field at 46th Street and McKinley Avenue. But police said they believe she is the first Los Angeles mother to commit a drive-by shooting in an attempt to avenge her child.

“It’s a new one, that’s for sure,” said Officer Bill Frio, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman.

Police said Julia Pena, 31, was awakened early Thursday by her teen-age son, who told her that he and a friend had been robbed at gunpoint on their way to school. It was not the first time the boy--whose name was being withheld--had said he was assaulted by gang members, said Sgt. Gary Grubbs. Word of the latest attack spurred Pena to action.

“She got out of bed, got dressed, told her son to pick up the purse where she always kept her gun. Then they got in the car and drove back to the school,” said Grubbs, the assistant watch commander at the Newton station.

When they arrived at the schoolyard, Grubbs said, Pena drove around in circles until her son saw the boys he said had held a gun to his head and stolen 25 cents from his friend.

“He said, ‘There they are.’ His mom pulled up, pointed the gun out the passenger window and told her son to duck down,” Grubbs said. And then, he said, she aimed her .32-caliber automatic handgun and opened fire. Grubbs said Pena recalled firing two rounds, but witnesses said they heard as many as six.

“I guess Mom was upset,” Grubbs said.

The boys at whom Pena fired had their backs to the car when she began shooting, and when they heard the gunfire, they ran. No one was hit even though students were flooding into the school just before the start of their morning classes.

Los Angeles Unified School District officers were sent to the school, where they arrested Pena and booked her on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, Grubbs said. She was in police custody, but her teen-age son was to be released to the custody of his father. The boy will be charged as a juvenile with the same offense as his mother, Grubbs said.

Herbert Graham, the director of police and administrative services for the school district, called the incident very dangerous and said it was the first of its kind.

“Anytime you discharge a firearm at a school or on the street, the potential for you to hurt someone is always there,” he said. “The tragedy is we’ve had so many gang killings in this county.

“I don’t remember a time when the mother or the father takes this kind of action. It’s a sad commentary on parents.”

Grubbs said that although Pena’s son did not claim to be a gang member, “he dresses the part. So if he isn’t, he’s setting himself up for a problem.” The teen-ager was wearing baggy khaki pants and an oversize shirt Thursday morning, Grubbs said, and displayed “the mannerisms, the stance” that usually indicate gang membership.