Carlmont High student, 17, found shot to death at Central Elementary
BELMONT » Detectives are investigating a shooting that left a Carlmont High School student dead in an elementary school parking lot Monday night, authorities said.
Additional counselors were on hand Tuesday at the high school where the victim, a 17-year-old boy from Redwood City, attended. Carlmont principal Ralph Crame sent a notice out to parents and the campus community confirming the death.
“It is with great sadness that I write to inform you of the tragic loss of one of our students,” Crame wrote in a message issued Tuesday. “As a close knit community, I know we are all feeling the pain of losing a beloved member of our Carlmont family. Although this is a difficult time for us, we know that the family is grieving and we must keep them in our thoughts and support them in any way that we can.”
The principal’s message did not name the victim, who had not been formally identified by the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office as of Tuesday afternoon. But family members confirmed that the victim was Mohammad Othman, a high school senior who also played wide receiver and defensive back for the school’s varsity football team.
Mohammad’s family declined comment to KGO-TV, this news organization’s media partner.
Jake Messina, Carlmont’s varsity football coach, said Mohammad worked as his student clerk and had made great strides to get back on the team after being academically ineligible his junior year. Messina said he was a key part of the team’s run to a Central Coast Section Division 4 championship.
“He really did a 180 in the offseason,” Messina said. “He was a really fearless player. He really helped us make that great run this year.”
Off the field, Messina said he had become a mentor for Mohammad, and said the teen planned to attend College of San Mateo after graduating.
“The part that saddens me the most is I felt there was real mentorship going on, and he was moving in the right direction,” Messina said. “This was a really unexpected, shocking, sad deal.”
The few details of the shooting that are publicly known is that the victim and whoever shot him knew each other, and met up along with other unidentified people, some of whom had ties to Carlmont High, according to police and a law-enforcement source.
“Detectives are confident that this was not a random crime and the victim and suspect were associated,” Belmont police stated in a news release.
Police went to Central Elementary School on Middle Road around 11 p.m. after getting a call minutes earlier from the victim’s family, who requested a welfare check on the boy and directed them to the Central campus.
“They believed that the youth was at the school and they were concerned for him,” police said.
Arriving officers found the teen lying in the parking lot with an “apparent gunshot wound,” police said. The officers tried to revive him, but the boy was pronounced dead at the scene by Belmont Fire Department paramedics.
The San Mateo Police Department, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Forensic Lab and Office of Emergency Services assisted in the crime-scene examination. Belmont police said they spent Tuesday interviewing potential witnesses and are working with the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.
“They’re running down all possible leads,” District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said.
Belmont police also said that the victim has no known connection to the elementary school where he was found gravely wounded.
Anyone with information about the shooting can contact Belmont police at 650-595-7400 or police@belmont.gov, or the Belmont police crime tip line at 650-598-3000.