It was just after 1 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon and the pop star Rihanna was inside an Airstream trailer parked in the driveway of her Los Angeles home. Her partner, the rapper ASAP Rocky, was with her, dozing in a bed.
Suddenly, she heard 10 loud sounds — like something banging on metal, she would later recount to the police. When the noises stopped, she opened the curtains and saw bullet holes in the trailer’s windshield.
Rihanna grabbed ASAP Rocky and pushed him to the ground.
“They shooting at us,” she told him, according to court documents.
That afternoon, March 8, the police arrested a woman, Ivanna Lisette Ortiz, who they say fired at least 20 rounds from an AR-15-style rifle into Rihanna’s house and a neighbor’s. The narrative of what the authorities say transpired that day unfolds in the Los Angeles Police Department’s investigative report of the episode.
Prosecutors later charged Ms. Ortiz, 35, with several counts, including attempted murder.
All three of Rihanna and ASAP Rocky’s children — ages 3, 2, and 5 months — were at home at the time of the shooting. Rihanna’s mother was also there, as were a nanny and a housekeeper. Two people were inside the neighboring home.
No injuries were reported.
A representative for Rihanna did not respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Ortiz, a speech therapist from Orlando, Fla., has a court hearing scheduled for Wednesday. The Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office has been appointed to Ms. Ortiz’s case but has declined to comment on it.
In their report, the police say that Ms. Ortiz was wearing a blond wig when she was arrested. They say she invoked her Miranda rights at a police station but did make one comment to a pair of detectives.
“Can I say one sentence?” they said she asked them. “I would like to say that I wasn’t attempting murder. But that’s all I wanted to say.”
The police interviewed several witnesses to the shooting, including a chef for Rihanna who had been parked outside the home on what was her first day of work. At one point, a Tesla pulled up alongside the chef’s vehicle. The chef later told the police that the woman in it appeared to be smirking or smiling, “as if she was about to do something naughty.”
The chef thought the encounter was strange but went back to watching TikTok videos on her phone, according to the report. Then she heard a series of loud pops and looked up to see the Tesla driving away. Smoke from the gunshots was coming out of one of the car’s windows, she said.
When Rihanna was interviewed by the police, she said she had at times dealt with stalkers and death threats on social media but could not think of a recent event that might be associated with the shooting.
Rihanna told the authorities that after pushing ASAP Rocky to the ground, they both ran into the house and told everyone about the gunshots. The police identified bullet holes, the report says, in several places: the Airstream trailer, a pedestrian gate, a wooden fence and the exterior wall of a nursery.
Emmanuel Morgan contributed reporting.
Matt Stevens is a Times reporter who writes about arts and culture from Los Angeles.
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