BURLINGTON — A 47-year-old woman has been ordered into court Monday to face charges that she threatened two teenage boys at a public city beach with a weapon.
Police received a call just after 9:30 Friday night from a boy, who said he and a friend had been approached by a woman at Leddy Park Beach who appeared to be “highly intoxicated.” He said she swore at them and, while pointing what appeared to be a shotgun or rifle, ordered them to get off the beach.
The woman — who was later located by police and identified as Karlotta Isham — “placed both juveniles in fear for their lives,” police said. She is scheduled to be arraigned on a charge of aggravated assault.
A Police Department press release outlined the incident this way:
Officers responding to the call arrived near the beach and found two “highly distressed” teens, ages 16 and 17, each of whom “stated numerous times that he had thought he was going to die.”
The boys said they had been on the public beach “after hours and near a small fire,” when a woman they had encountered earlier in the evening approached them in the dark. On those earlier occasions, they had moved further down the beach at her request.
They said she claimed to be an “officer” and pointed a rifle at them. One boy immediately fled but the other fell to the ground and lay “face down and arms outstretched,” asking what she wanted. When she “aggressively ordered him off the beach” he got up and ran off, leaving his shoes and other belongings behind.
Because the call to police included a reference to a firearm, officers carried rifles while searching Leddy Park and the surrounding area. On the beach, they found the remains of a campfire that also contained the boy’s shoes.
After the teens provided a description of the woman, the weapon and where she appeared to be headed, police contacted her once they determined she lived at a nearby house in the New North End.
Isham made statements that corroborated what the two boys had said, according to police, and officers recovered an “imitation rifle or pellet gun.” She was then arrested, taken to police headquarters and later released to await Monday’s hearing.
Although the department release was not clear as to whether the boys had started the campfire, police said they would be issued tickets for violating an ordinance concerning the use of fires in city parks.
Jon Murad, deputy chief of operations, said the Police Department had not been contacted earlier about any incidents at the beach Friday night.
“I’m aware of the frustrations neighbors have regarding after-hours activity in the vicinity of Leddy Park and Leddy Park Beach,” Murad said. “But neighbors in Burlington cannot take the law into their own hands and threaten people with firearms, imitation or not, over campfires.
“At Neighborhood Planning Assemblies and other venues, I’ve pledged that officers will respond when called,” he said. “In this instance we received no calls about fires or any other violation on the beach — only a call for help from two terrified boys.”
