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A 35-year-old Florida woman armed with an AR-15 weapon fired several shots into the Beverly Hills-area home of pop star Rihanna on Sunday, and a round penetrated a wall of the mansion, a law enforcement source told The Times.
Police identified the suspect as Ivanna Ortiz. Ivana Ortiz is being held on $10.2-million bail. Officials have not cited a motive for the attack.
Los Angeles police responded to the report of the shooting at 1:21 p.m. Sunday in the Beverly Hills Post Office neighborhood. The pop star was home, the source said.
The suspect, Ivana Ortiz, of Orlando, had several prior arrests in her home state, according to public records reviewed by The Times.
She was involved in a bankruptcy case in 2013, was arrested on suspicion of careless driving in 2021 and arrested again in 2023 on suspicion of domestic violence and battery.
She was a licensed speech pathologist and had no known affiliation with Rihanna or her partner, rapper A$AP Rocky, the records showed.
Ortiz frequently posted on Facebook, rapping and dancing and calling out celebrities. In nearly every video, she was alone performing for the camera.
On Feb. 17, she posted a meme alleging Rihanna had AIDS.
On Feb. 23, Ortiz posted on Facebook, tagging Rihanna and telling her to “say something to me directly instead of sneaking around like you talking to me where I’m not at.”
According to police, Ortiz fired multiple rounds from inside her vehicle toward the celebrity’s home. No injuries were reported in the incident, according to Police Sgt. Jonathan de Vera, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department.
The LAPD radio dispatch for the incident said that at least 10 shots had been fired at the residence from a vehicle across the street from the property’s gate. The vehicle, a white Tesla, then fled south on Coldwater Canyon Drive, per the dispatch audio.
As police searched for the Tesla, they relayed details over the radio: The suspect’s hair was in braids; she wore a cream-colored blouse; her car was dirty on the bottom. Officers in a helicopter soon caught sight of her vehicle and followed it to a shopping center parking lot in Sherman Oaks, where they arrested her around 30 minutes after the 911 call came in, according to radio correspondence reviewed by The Times.
“When they pulled the suspect over and took her into custody, they searched the vehicle and located an assault rifle and seven casings,” said Armen Arias, an LAPD spokesperson.
Police found bullet holes in a gate at Rihanna’s home and in an RV parked in the driveway, he said.
The pop star reportedly lives in a colonial-style mansion in the Beverly Hills Post Office neighborhood with ASAP Rocky. The couple share three young children — a daughter and two sons. It wasn’t immediately clear whether anyone else was home at the time of the shooting.
Rihanna and ASAP Rocky are parents to sons RZA, born in May 2022, and Riot, who was born in August 2023. They welcomed daughter Rocki a little more than five months ago.
In 2018, a Fullerton man broke into Rihanna’s Hollywood Hills home and spent about 12 hours inside. Eduardo Leon later pleaded no contest to stalking the singer, according to then-L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey. Leon hopped a fence and entered the house; Rihanna was not home at the time. The next day, he was discovered by the singer’s assistant, authorities said.
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