SACRAMENTO, Calif. –\u00a0The United States Department of Justice says that on Thursday, federal charges were filed against 20-year-old Brian Richard Girardot Jr. of Sacramento for possessing a firearm within a school zone.<\/p>\n
Court documents revealed that on February 18, 2026, Girardot, a former student of St. Mary Parish School, dropped off a younger relative at the school.<\/p>\n
Authorities say that Girardot\u00a0returned to the campus at around 9:30 a.m. and attempted to enter St. Mary Catholic Church during an Ash Wednesday mass while carrying a loaded firearm.<\/p>\n
Additional ammunition and a camouflage jacket were located in\u00a0Girardot’s vehicle, which was parked nearby.<\/p>\n
After his arrest, authorities conducted a search of Girardot’s residence. During the search, law enforcement found a series of handwritten notes that were in a stack in his bedroom.<\/p>\n
According to the Department of Justice, the notes contained references to both suicide and threats.<\/p>\n
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Sacramento Police Department are leading the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Elliot Wong is handling the prosecution.<\/p>\n
The United States Department of Justice says that\u00a0Girardot faces additional state criminal charges.<\/p>\n
If convicted,\u00a0Girardot could face up to five years in prison, though the sentence would be at the court’s discretion after consideration of any and all applicable factors.<\/p>\n
The Department of Justice says that the charges against\u00a0Girardot are only allegations and that the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO, Calif. –\u00a0The United States Department of Justice says that on Thursday, federal charges were filed against 20-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[3671,723,100,121,123,122,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-185721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-covering-california","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-sacramento","12":"tag-sacramento-headlines","13":"tag-sacramento-news","14":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}