A Butler woman is accused of hiding the handgun that her boyfriend allegedly shot repeatedly into the air last month in the city's Island neighborhood.

A preliminary hearing for Heather M. Crawford, 35, is set for Sept. 10. Butler police Friday charged her with tampering with physical evidence, a misdemeanor.

Police previously arrested 36-year-old Allen D. Franklin of Butler in connection with the June 18 shooting on Negley Avenue. No one was injured and no property was apparently damaged.

Crawford and Franklin live together in the 300 block of Negley Avenue, according to court documents.

Franklin allegedly fired six shots from a .40-caliber pistol about 1 p.m. The gunfire, police said, startled a man mowing the grass and at least two utility workers nearby.

Police soon after the shooting recovered six spent .40-caliber casings from the area of Negley Avenue and Upper Shore Street.

Franklin initially gave a bogus name and he denied shooting a gun, police said. He also refused to speak to officers. He was placed in the Butler County Prison on an unrelated warrant and subsequently charged in the shooting.

Later, documents said, police recovered the pistol from a home on the same street where Crawford and Franklin live.

The resident told officers that Crawford had placed it under the back porch there after the shooting.

During an interview at the station, according to a police affidavit, she admitted that she found the gun on the neighbor's front porch and hid it under the back porch.

She was charged by summons.

A records check on the gun, documents said, found that it had been reported stolen Oct. 8, 2012, to the Franklin County Sheriff's Office in Ohio.

Investigators also learned that Franklin has prior convictions that under state law bar him from possessing a firearm and he did not have a carry license for the pistol.

He is charged with persons not to possess firearms and firearms not to be carried without a license as well as receiving stolen property, all felonies.

Additionally, he is charged with misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment and false identification to law enforcement.

Franklin on June 25 waived those charges to court. He is free on $25,000 bail.