Videos show Cal Poly student shooting guns on campus at least 3 times
One of the Cal Poly students accused of shooting guns on campus in 2023 will face trial, a judge ruled Monday.
Videos shown in court showed 21-year-old Charles Hojaboom shooting with a rifle on Cal Poly’s campus at least three times before he and Brandon Pham were arrested by Cal Poly police on Nov. 11, when officers found the two along Poly Canyon Road in possession of a shotgun, a loaded, concealed pistol and a knife. The officers also found a nearby campus sign with bullet holes, he said.
Pham pleaded no contest to three felony counts of possession of a loaded firearm on a college campus and felony shooting at an inhabited dwelling on Aug. 14, court records showed. His other charges were dismissed. He was sentenced to 210 days in County Jail in September.
Hojaboom, however, pleaded not guilty on Jan. 4, 2024, to felony discharging a firearm with gross negligence, felony shooting at an inhabited dwelling, felony possession of a knife, four felony counts of possession of a loaded firearm on a college campus and misdemeanor possession of tools with intent to commit vandalism.
Pham and Hojaboom were roommates at Poly Canyon Village.
After his preliminary hearing, which was the public’s and judge’s first chance to see what evidence the DIstrict Attorney’s Office has, San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge Catherine Swysen agreed to dropped the felony knife charge but add another for possession of a loaded firearm on campus.
After seeing videos and hearing testimony from a Cal Poly Police Department officer and detective, Swysen ruled there was enough evidence for Hojaboom to stand trial.
Hojaboom’s next court hearing was scheduled for Feb. 26.
Cal Poly student admits to bringing, shooting guns on campus
Cal Poly Police Officer Scott Severn was one of the officers who arrested Pham and Hojaboom on Poly Canyon Road.
He said he and another officer heard the gunshots while they were conducting a traffic stop near the Kennedy Library and left to investigate.
He said he heard about seven rounds over two to three seconds and believed the gunshots came from a semi-automatic weapon.
Severn’s biggest concern was the potential loss of life and whether there was an active shooter on campus, he said. He said he and another officer turned on their lights and sirens and drove to areas of campus with people, then when they heard more gunshots, they drove toward Poly Canyon Road.
He and the other officer saw Pham and Hojaboom walking on Poly Canyon Road with a semi-automatic pistol and a 12-gauge shotgun. They also found spent and live rounds of bullets and shotgun shells in Hojaboom’s pockets, and another type of ammunition, Severn said.
Pham walked officers to the area where the two were shooting, which was in a nearby creekbed. Pham also admitted to shooting a nearby sign. Both he and Hojaboom told officers that Hojaboom was the main shooter, while Pham shot only once.
In a video interview that was shown in court, Hojaboom said he bought the shotgun when he was 18 and that his father bought him the pistol a few months prior. He said he had three guns total on campus, and another rifle at his home near Santa Rosa in the Bay Area.
He said he had had the guns on campus since he moved in and that his roommate who was not Pham probably didn’t know he had guns in his room.
In the video, Severn noted that on Hojaboom’s desk there was a signed paper that listed prohibited items for students living on campus, which included weapons.
“Do you see why we’re concerned?” Severn asked.
“Yes,” Hojaboom responded.
When the officer asked Hojaboom whether he was feeling mad or angry, Hojaboom responded, “I’m not gonna, like, shoot a bunch of people.”
He said that the reason he had a ski mask in his room is because his friend bought one, so he decided to buy one, too. He said he had bought ammunition just a few days prior.
“Do you understand how serious this is?” the officer asked.
“Yeah, I f--ked up,” Hojaboom responded.
Hojaboom told Severn he was not planning on hurting anyone at the school and that police found him and Pham right after they were shooting.
Videos show student shooting rifle on campus
Texts and videos show the two students shot guns on campus at least four times, court records showed, including into what police believe was the ceiling of Hojaboom’s campus apartment.
Three videos of Hojaboom shooting on campus were shown in court on Monday.
The first occurred on June 10, 2023, about 300 feet away from residences on Slack Street on campus property. The video, which was about six seconds long, shows Hojaboom shooting a rifle followed by Pham saying, “That was awesome.”
According to text messages read in court, Pham and Hojaboom were concerned about how close they actually were to the homes after their shooting.
Pham: “TBH that was actually hella sped of us for shooting downwards.”
Hojaboom: “Yeah IDK.” and “At first we were try harding then we just started f--king around.”
Pham: “There’s a whole a-- strip of houses if you follow the trajectory.”
Hojaboom “F--k we are dead.”
Pham then sent Hojaboom a map with an “X’” marking where he thought the two were shooting.
Hojaboom “IDK hopefully we didn’t shoot at a farmer” then “According to Quora we didn’t commit murder.”
Pham: “I hope to God we didn’t hit anything beyond the cacti.”
Hojaboom: “As long as we didn’t waste someone on accident.”
Text messages on June 16, 2023, read in court show Pham suggested to Hojaboom that the two go shooting because he had heard some fireworks outside of their dorm.
Video from the same evening shown in court shows Pham zooming in on a target, then panning to Hojaboom, who then shoots a rifle, before Pham pans back to the target.
According to Cal Poly Police Det. Steve Williams, this shooting occurred approximately 180 feet away from the Sierra Madre dorm.
Williams said Hojaboom was shooting away from the dorms and that a shotgun wad and paper from an accounting textbook — which the students allegedly used as the target — were found at the scene.
The third video shown in court was taken on Oct. 27, 2023 — about two weeks before the two were caught by police on Poly Canyon Road.
The video was dark, but at the beginning a metallic sound can be heard. This sound is what Williams described as the cycling of a bolt-action rifle.
Hojaboom is seen wearing ear muffs and holding the rifle with the barrel facing in an upwards position at his desk toward the end of his bed. Before the gunshot, one of the students say “Charles Manson” and after the gunshot, laughing and “oh s--t” can be heard.
During the investigation, officers discovered a hole in Hojaboom’s ceiling that went into the room directly above him. Williams said he believed this to be the bullet hole from the Oct. 27, 2023, video.
The hole went through a wooden chest that was underneath the upstairs neighbor’s bed and left a mark on the bottom of the bed frame, Williams said. He said he couldn’t say for certain where the rifle was exactly aimed.
During a gun violence restraining order hearing, Pham testified that Hojaboom had actually shot out the window and said the video occurred on a separate occasion when he was not there, Williams said. But, Williams added, if he had shot out the window, the building next door would have been hit, and he did not find any physical evidence of that. He also believed Pham took the video.
Williams said there were several text messages between Pham and Hojaboom that were deleted on Oct. 27, 2023, that he could not recover. Hojaboom also texted his brother the following day, “I shot the mosin yesterday,” referring to the type of rifle Hojaboom was seen using in the video.
Detectives found three different types of ammunition in Hojaboom’s room in addition to the three firearms.
This story was originally published February 4, 2025 at 12:43 PM.
