Woman says she fired gun to break up a school fight targeting her son

A Pompano Beach mother of seven is facing charges for firing a gun in the air during a fight near Blanche Ely High School, the Broward Sheriff's Office said.

Treneca Laquanda Smith, 35, told investigators she met with the school’s principal Tuesday to talk about a fight her son had Monday with a student named “Tre” who she heard was known to carry a gun, an arrest report said.

When Smith left the school she said someone told her that her son was involved in another fight down the street. Smith went to a parking lot in the 1400 block of Northwest Sixth Avenue and found 30 to 40 people fighting and seven or eight people jumping her son, she told investigators.

Smith said she pushed her way through the crowd, grabbed her son’s shirt to pull him away, then saw a man walking through the crowd pointing a gun at her son.

When he fired a shot in the air, she pulled her gun from a holster and fired one or two shots in the air to scare him off.

She drove away with her son but stopped, got out of her car, and fired another shot in the air when she thought she saw the man pointing a gun her car.

Anthony Gustave, who was in the crowd, tells a different story. He said Smith threatened him and pointed a gun at his face before firing shots in the air and leaving the scene in a black Kia Optima, the arrest report said.

When questioned by deputies, Smith said her son was being beaten by several people and that one of the males in the crowd fired a gun in the air but she denied pointing her gun at anyone.

Gustave was able to identify Smith as the woman who grabbed his shirt and pointed a gun at his face, investigators said.

Detectives searched Smith’s car and home and found a 9mm handgun with ammunition that matched bullet casings found at the scene of the shootings, the arrest report said.

Smith was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and discharging a firearm in public and was jailed on bonds totaling $2,500, records show.

Smith