School Shooter Was 'Radicalized by Extremists'

The student who opened fire at a suburban Denver high school on Wednesday had been radicalized by an extremist group, authorities say. The student was identified Thursday as 16-year-old Desmond Holly, the Denver Post reports. Jefferson County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Jacki Kelley said evidence on Holly's phone and in his home shows he was "radicalized by some extremist network," though she declined to name the group or its positions. Two students were critically injured in the Evergreen High School attack. Holly was hospitalized with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said, and died hours later.

Kelley said Holly brought a handgun and "quite a bit of ammunition" to the school but he was unable to access areas where many students were sheltering. "He would fire and reload, fire and reload," she said. "This went on and on. He tried to find new targets. He came up to a roadblock on many of those doors—he couldn't get to those kids." One student was shot outside the school and another inside. Kelley said investigators are looking at whether Holly's parents should face charges for allowing him access to the gun, the AP reports. She said the school's resource officer was on medical leave and the replacement, one of two part-time officers sharing the job, was away from the school at the site of a nearby accident.

Evergreen High School is in the same district as Columbine High School, where a mass shooting killed 13 students and one teacher in 1999. John McDonald, the district's former safety director, tells the AP that in the decades after Columbine, safety measures were introduced, including panic buttons, partnerships with law enforcement, and new protocols for staff and students to follow. "I can't praise the staff and the students enough for doing what they learned to do," Kelley said, per the New York Times. "They did the right thing. They locked down."