Report says school shooting suspect was fascinated with mass shootings
and expressed neo-Nazi views
[September 13, 2025]
By COLLEEN SLEVIN and MATTHEW BROWN
DENVER (AP) — A teenager suspected in a shooting attack at a suburban
Denver high school that left two students in critical condition appeared
fascinated with previous mass shootings including Columbine and
expressed neo-Nazi views online, according to experts.
Since December, Desmond Holly, 16, had been active on an online forum
where users watch videos of killings and violence, mixed in with content
on white supremacism and antisemitism, the Anti-Defamation League’s
Center on Extremism said in a report.
Holly shot himself following Wednesday’s shooting at Evergreen High
School in Jefferson County. He died of his injuries. It is still unclear
how he selected his victims. The county was also the scene of the 1999
Columbine High School massacre that killed 14 people.
Holly's TikTok accounts contained white supremacist symbols, the ADL
said, and the name of his most recent account included a reference to a
popular white supremacist slogan. The account was unavailable Friday.
TikTok said accounts associated with Holly had been banned.
Holly’s family could not be reached. The Associated Press left a message
at a telephone number associated with the house that police searched
after the shooting.
A spokesperson for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, Mark Techmeyer,
declined to comment on the ADL's findings or discuss its investigation
into the shooting. The office previously said that Holly was radicalized
by an unspecified “extremist network" but released no details.
Two recent suspects in school shootings were active on the so-called
“gore forum” that Holly used — Watch People Die, according to the ADL.
Holly appears to have opened his account in the month in between
shootings in Madison, Wisconsin and Nashville, Tennessee, the ADL said.
A few days before Wednesday's shooting, Holly posted a TikTok video
posing in a similar way to how the Wisconsin shooter posed before
killing two people during in December. He included a photo of the
Wisconsin shooter in a post in which Holly wore black T-shirt with
“WRATH” written on the front.
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Flowers are left in remembrance of those wounded in a shooting at
Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colo., Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025.
(AP Photo/Colleen Slevin)
He also posted videos showing how he had made the shirt that was like
one worn by a gunman in the Columbine shooting, the ADL said.
“There is a through-line between those attacks,” said Oren Segal, the
ADL’s senior vice president of counter-extremism and intelligence.
”They’re telling us there is a through line because they are referencing
each other."
Emails sent to Watch People Die seeking comment weren't immediately
returned.
Holly was also active on TikTok’s “True Crime Community,” where it says
users have a fascination with mass murderers and serial killers, the ADL
said.
Some TikTok posts shared by the ADL show one user encouraging Holly to
be a “hero,” a term it says white supremacists use to refer to
successfully ideologically motivated attackers.
The person also told Holly to get a patch with a Nazi-era symbol that
was worn by the men who carried out the 2019 attack on a mosque in
Christchurch, New Zealand, and the 2022 attack on a supermarket in
Buffalo, New York.
Holly posted a photo of two patches that he had but said the Velcro on
the back had fallen off.
“I'm gonna use stronger glue when I fix it,” he said.
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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.
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