Atherton police said that thanks to a tipster, a student was caught with a loaded gun on the Menlo-Atherton High School campus on Thursday, Nov. 10, and arrested.

Police received a call around 9:30 a.m. on Thursday from staff at the Atherton school saying they received an anonymous tip that an M-A student had a firearm, said Cmdr. Daniel Larsen in an email. The person who made the anonymous tip provided the student's identifying information.

"When the student arrived on campus, they were brought to the office and the school called the PD (police department)," Larsen said. School staff searched the student and located the firearm on the student's waistband, he said. Police identified it as a Sig Sauer P226 9mm pistol with one round chambered and nine rounds in the magazine.

"Although nothing in our preliminary fact-finding leads to the conclusion that the student was intending to use the firearm on campus, I recognize that any weapon on our campus poses a risk to our entire school community," M-A Principal Karl Losekoot told families in a Nov. 10 email. "Although I am precluded from sharing disciplinary details, I can share with you that our school site will impose the legally allowable disciplinary sanctions, as weapons have absolutely no place on a school campus."

He added that the safety and well-being of M-A's school community will always be the top priority, and thanked the vice principal's team for creating a culture of trust and for creating clear procedures for when such a situation arises. "It was that trust that allowed us to obtain the information and it was our clear processes that led to the removal of a weapon from our school today," Losekoot wrote.

The student was arrested on suspicion of having a firearm at a public school, carrying a concealed weapon and having a firearm in public, and was booked into Hillcrest Juvenile Detention Center in San Mateo, according to Larsen.