Arraignment Set in Shooting Case

A 31-year-old woman accused of firing a weapon at children near an elementary school will be arraigned Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court on charges of assault with a firearm.

Los Angeles Municipal Judge Suzanne E. Person ordered Charlotte De La Torre to stand trial on the two assault charges but dismissed a pair of attempted murder counts during a recent preliminary hearing.

Person said testimony from three prosecution witnesses--a student, a pedestrian and a Los Angeles police officer--failed to show that De La Torre acted with premeditation or malice during the May 19 incident.

The judge kept the defendant’s bail at $2 million. If convicted, she could receive up to 11 years in state prison, prosecutors said.

De La Torre was arrested and charged shortly after she allegedly fired a weapon at two girls walking home from Castelar Street School, 840 Yale St. Neither was injured. Several shell casings and a 12-gauge shotgun believed to have been used in the shooting were recovered by police.

During a July 15 preliminary hearing, Officer John Cronshaw said one of the girls told him that they bolted for cover behind a green car near Alpine Street and Hill Place.

“They were very shaken up,” he said. “They were very hesitant to speak to me and required a lot of calming and reassurance that the person who made them afraid was not going to harm them again.”

Earlier in the hearing, a boy told the judge that he and five friends ran away from an armed woman because they thought she was firing at them.

Sherry Chamberlain, a passerby, said she saw six children running away from the scene of the shooting. Neither she nor the boy mentioned the two girls whom prosecutors cited in their complaint against De La Torre.

That prompted Person to dismiss the attempted murder charges for lack of evidence, despite Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Meister’s argument that De La Torre “was heavily armed . . . and was in a rage of some sort.”

Meister later hinted at a motive for the defendant’s alleged outburst by telling the judge that “she shot at the kids because they made her dog bark.”

Members of De La Torre’s family have said previously that the woman was shooting at her roommate’s car, rather than at the children. A mental illness had led her to believe someone was trying to harm her, her family said.

“We have entered a plea of not guilty, and we’ll enter a plea of not guilty at her arraignment,” said De La Torre’s public defender, Susan Aaronson.