DENVER — A 16-year-old opened fire at a high school in Evergreen, Colorado, injuring two students before taking his own life. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) revealed that the teenager had left digital clues about his plans on social media in the days leading up to the incident.
On the day of the shooting, the attacker reposted an image of a revolver and ammunition on the social platform X, two hours prior to the event, according to an ADL report released on Friday. This report was based on an investigation by their Center on Extremism.
The research indicated that Desmond Holly, the attacker, had earlier posted the same picture on his X account and had shared on TikTok images of a skull mask, a ballistic vest, and a knife inscribed with a Nordic symbol, as reported by the ADL’s findings.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on Monday but mentioned the previous week that the shooter had been “radicalized by an extremist network,” without detailing further.
The two injured students were taken to a nearby hospital. One was released and the other was in serious condition, the sheriff’s office said.
Days before the attack, Holly posted on TikTok wearing a T-shirt with “WRATH” emblazoned in red paint, stated the ADL.
Holly assembled his gear in a piecemeal fashion, the ADL said, drawing inspiration from the equipment used by previous mass shooters.
Additionally, Holly had posted a TikTok video, now deleted, showcasing himself in a tactical helmet and gas mask, with a Serbian folk song playing in the background—this same song was played by the perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks during his livestream.
The ADL said the shooter was active on a violent gore site and spent “substantial amounts of time” in online spaces that featured extremist ideologies and violent content while amassing tactical gear to carry out his shooting. It did not describe the extremist ideologies.
The Evergreen shooter is among several mass shooters who have been active on social media before carrying out their attacks, the ADL said. He had an account on the gore forum WatchPeopleDie, where he liked and commented on posts about American mass shootings, such as those in Parkland, Florida, and Buffalo, New York, the group said.
He appeared to have joined the site in December 2024, during the month between school shootings at Abundant Life Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, and Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee, the ADL said.
The Evergreen shooter acquired tactical gear with extremist symbols, the ADL said. It did not say what those extremist symbols were. The shooter also posted content emulating the former Columbine High School shooters, who killed 14 people in 1999. Evergreen High School is about 37 miles from Columbine.
The Evergreen shooter’s TikTok accounts were filled with white supremacist symbolism and neo-Nazi code phrases, the ADL found.
On his previous TikTok account, his profile photo featured a picture of the white supremacist gunman who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022 being arrested.
His most recent profile photo was of the attacker who killed six people during a shooting rampage near the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2014, the ADL said.
