A 16-year-old boy who opened fire at a suburban Denver high school this week, leaving two students critically injured before killing himself, had a disturbing online trail that glorified past mass shootings and trafficked in neo-Nazi rhetoric, according to extremism experts.
The suspect shot himself following Wednesday’s attack at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County and later died of his injuries. The county was also the site of the infamous 1999 Columbine High School massacre, in which 14 people were killed.
In a report released Thursday, the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Centre on Extremism said the teenager had been active since December on an online forum devoted to graphic videos of killings and violence, according to the New York Post. Intermixed were posts promoting white supremacism, antisemitism, and praise for past mass killers.
The boy allegedly posted videos of himself recreating the shirt worn by one of Columbine’s gunmen, echoing the symbolic “hero worship” that ADL officials say links many extremist-inspired attackers.
“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.”
The teen also participated in TikTok’s so-called “True Crime Community,” where fascination with mass murderers and serial killers is widespread. In several posts cited by the ADL, other users urged him to become a “hero” — a term white supremacists use for ideological attackers.
He was even advised to obtain patches bearing Nazi-era symbols associated with perpetrators of the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre and the 2022 Buffalo supermarket shooting. In one post, he displayed two patches he had acquired, lamenting that the Velcro backing had fallen off: “I’m gonna use stronger glue when I fix it,” he wrote.
Investigators have not said how or why the teen chose his victims at Evergreen High School, and the probe remains ongoing.
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