WESTFIELD - A reputed gang member recovering from lung surgery allegedly threatened to shoot a woman for smoking cigarettes in his presence last week.

Raekwon D. McLeod, 22, pulled a loaded 9mm pistol from his sweatpants and pointed it at his girlfriend's mother during a cigarette-related dispute in Westfield on Oct. 15, according to the arrest report.

"Are you going to let him point his gun at your mother?" a relative allegedly asked McLeod's girlfriend during the confrontation, which took place in an apartment about 100 feet from the Westfield police station.

When McLeod walked from the room, his girlfriend's mother walked to the police station and reported the alleged threat; minutes later, several officers arrested McLeod in an upstairs bedroom, and found a loaded 9mm Sig Sauer pistol in an open drawer, the report said.

Held in custody overnight, he pleaded not guilty in Westfield District Court the next day to assault with a dangerous weapon, assault on a family or household member, improper storage of a firearm accessible to a minor, and two counts of threatening to commit a crime.

At a prosecutor's request, McLeod was held for a dangerousness hearing and later released without cash bail with several conditions, including staying away from the victim and witnesses and surrendering all weapons and his license to carry a firearm.

McLeod, his girlfriend and her mother lived in the two-story Green Avenue apartment, along with several other adults and young children, court records show. McLeod had recently undergone surgery to repair a hole in his lung, and was warned by his surgeon to avoid cigarette smoke, the report said.

The cause of his lung injury is not mentioned in the report, which describes McLeod as a member of Springfield's Knox Street gang, although he has no criminal record as an adult.

After returning from the hospital, McLeod allegedly used his handgun to discourage smoking in the apartment. "He threatened to shoot anyone he caught smoking," a witness told police.

When officers arrived at the apartment, McLeod said he had a license to carry the pistol and said they could find it his bedroom drawer. The gun - which had a round in the chamber and nine more in the magazine - had no trigger lock and was not secured, the report said.

"It was laying loaded in the open dresser drawer ... easily accessible to any child or adult within the residence," a police officer wrote in the report.

Following the arrest, Westfield police filed a report of alleged child abuse or neglect with the state Department of Children and Families.

McLeod is due back in court for a pretrial hearing in November.