A 16-year-old who investigators say carried out a shooting at Evergreen High School in suburban Denver had expressed neo‑Nazi views online and appeared fascinated with previous mass killings, the Anti‑Defamation League’s Center on Extremism reported Friday.
Desmond Holly shot himself following the Wednesday attack and later died of his injuries, Jefferson County authorities said. Two students were left in critical condition. It remained unclear how Holly selected his victims or whether he acted on directives from any organized group, officials said.
The ADL said Holly had been active on an online forum since December where users watch videos of killings and other graphic violence and mix that content with white supremacist and antisemitic material. The organization identified the site as Watch People Die, a so‑called "gore forum" that researchers say has been used by other recent suspects in mass shootings.
Holly’s activity on TikTok also reflected extremist content, the ADL reported. Investigators found accounts that used white supremacist symbols, and the name of a recent account included a reference to a slogan popular among white supremacists. TikTok said accounts associated with Holly had been banned. The account was unavailable for review on Friday.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the ADL’s findings. A sheriff’s office spokesperson, Mark Techmeyer, has previously said investigators believe Holly was radicalized by an unspecified "extremist network" but provided no further details. Law enforcement continues to search Holly’s residence and review devices as part of an ongoing probe.
According to the ADL, Holly opened the gore forum account in the month between shootings in Madison, Wisconsin, and Nashville, Tennessee. A few days before the Evergreen attack, Holly posted a TikTok video in which he posed similarly to how the Wisconsin shooter posed in a pre‑attack post. The ADL said Holly included a photograph of the Wisconsin suspect in a post in which he wore a black T‑shirt bearing the word "WRATH." The organization also said Holly posted videos showing how he made a shirt similar to one worn by a gunman in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
"There is a through‑line between those attacks," Oren Segal, the ADL’s senior vice president of counter‑extremism and intelligence, said in the group’s report. "They’re telling us there is a through‑line because they are referencing each other."
The Jefferson County area was the site of the 1999 Columbine massacre that killed 14 people, an association that has drawn attention amid the investigation into Holly’s online references to Columbine and other past attacks.
The ADL said some TikTok posts within what it calls the platform’s "True Crime Community" showed users glorifying mass murderers and encouraging violent acts. In examples cited by the organization, one user told Holly to be a "hero," a term the ADL said white supremacists use to describe ideologically motivated attackers who carry out violence. Another user urged Holly to obtain a patch bearing a Nazi‑era symbol that was worn by attackers in the 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shootings and the 2022 supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York. Holly posted a photograph of two patches and commented that the Velcro backs had fallen off and he would use stronger glue when he repaired them, the ADL said.
Attempts to reach Holly’s family were not immediately successful. The Associated Press left a message at a telephone number associated with the home that police searched after the shooting. Emails seeking comment from the operators of Watch People Die were not immediately returned.
TikTok said it had removed accounts associated with Holly. The company has previously faced scrutiny over how extremist content and communities operate on its platform and has said it uses a combination of human review and automated systems to detect and remove content that violates its rules.
Investigators have not released details about a potential motive or how Holly obtained weapons used in the attack. Authorities said they were continuing to review digital evidence and social media accounts as part of a broader probe into whether the shooting was inspired or directed by others.
Community members and local officials planned vigils for the injured students and meetings to discuss school safety in the coming days. The shooting has renewed questions nationally about how online communities that share violent imagery and extremist ideology may influence vulnerable individuals and about how platforms and law enforcement identify and respond to early warning signs.
Law enforcement asked anyone with information about the incident or Holly’s online activity to contact the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. The investigation is ongoing.