Security guard got Grant Union High shooting suspect to ‘give up the gun,’ Sacramento mom says

Sacramento mother Alicia Bledsoe says her son is a hero.

Ramon Alejandro Williams — “Bo” to everyone on the Grant Union High School campus — persuaded an armed 14-year-old to drop a gun Tuesday after he’s accused of shooting another student at the school’s parking lot, Williams’ mother said.

Police and Sacramento Fire Department medics arrived just after 9:50 a.m. for reports of an emergency, alerted by a ShotSpotter activation. The 17-year-old shooting victim was taken to a hospital with a non-life threatening injury to his arm as the suspect fled the campus, police said.

Williams, who declined through his mother to comment, was working as a security guard on the Del Paso Heights campus and followed the suspect with police down South Avenue. Bledsoe said the student ran to a house near South Avenue and hid behind it.

“Bo said, ‘You don’t want to die. Throw the gun,’” Bledsoe said.

That’s when the teen surrendered, according to the mother.

Sacramento Police Department spokesman Sgt. Carlos Martinez said the incident appeared to be “targeted” and there is no threat to the community. The suspect was detained in the 3800 block of Balsam Street, a couple of blocks away from campus, said Officer Cody Tapley, another Police Department spokesman.

“It’s hard to fathom that an alleged conflict between two students escalated to where we are today,” Zenobia Gerald, a spokesperson for Twin Rivers Unified School District, wrote in a statement.

Williams, a Grant Union High School alumnus, was born and raised in the neighborhoods around Grant High. Bledsoe, a California state worker who is running in this year’s election to take over the City Council seat representing North Sacramento that was vacated with Sean Loloee’s resignation, lives across the street from the campus.

She believes Williams’ ties to the neighborhood and school helped him convince the teen to drop the weapon.

“He’s from the Heights. He’s from the Manors. He was raised out there,” Bledsoe said, referring to Del Paso Heights and adjacent Strawberry Manor. “He was the one who got him to give up the gun.”

Williams told her that someone had been shot, and Bledsoe went to the campus.

Williams was not injured in the shooting, but he told her he pleaded with the youth.

“He said, ‘Just throw the gun on the ground,’” Bledsoe said.

“The police were going to kill him,” she said. “My son said, ‘Hold on.’”

The 14-year-old suspect faces assault-related charges at juvenile hall, Tapley said.