Piano teacher shot at by neighbour, following noise complaints

15 August 2022, 14:56 | Updated: 15 August 2022, 16:33

The shooting in California was reportedly incited by an ongoing dispute between two neighbours.

Dr Pin-Hsin Lin was warming up before she was due to teach a piano lesson in her Californian apartment, when a bullet narrowly missed her and hit a lamp on her piano.

The bullet had come from the ceiling, where her upstairs neighbour Kathryn Pugh, a 39-year-old nurse, lived.

Prior to the bullet’s entry through the ceiling, Lin had heard banging in the upstairs apartment, but only later realised the noise had been caused by gunshots.

Lin immediately phoned the police, and Pugh was arrested earlier this month and has been charged with two counts of felony for ‘discharging a firearm at an inhabited dwelling’.

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Arcadia police officer, Sergeant Ryan Mulhall, told the Los Angeles and Southern California news station, ABC 7: “We found an intoxicated female in possession of two guns.”

Pugh shot four rounds on the day in question, and police discovered two of these bullets had made it through to Lin’s apartment downstairs.

Mulhall continued, “We found a bottle of tequila inside [Pugh’s] house, and she was exhibiting signs and symptoms of being drunk.”

Pugh moved into the apartment building last year, and reportedly began complaining about the piano noise then.

After being arrested at the beginning of August, the nurse’s bail was originally set at $250,000. Her bail was subsequently raised to $500,000, however, Judge Terry Lee Smerling ruled that Pugh is a ‘danger to the community’, and ordered her to be held without bail despite the healthcare worker having no prior criminal record.

Pugh’s next court appearance is scheduled for tomorrow, and her public defender attorney told ABC 7 that she is concerned that this case could lose the nurse her job, apartment, and livelihood.

Lin however told the Californian news station that she is “afraid that [Pugh] will seek revenge”, when she is released.