JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — A massive trove of documents related to the Evergreen High School shooting was released late Thursday by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.
On Sept. 10, 2025, an Evergreen High School student shot two of his classmates before turning the gun on himself. The motive for the shooting remains unknown, but we know the FBI was investigating the social media accounts connected to the 16-year-old boy two months before the attack. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office said a day after the shooting the teen had been "radicalized."
Watch Denver7's Natalie Chuck report about the release of these documents below:
18-year-old Matthew Silverstone was one of the students injured in the shooting. The other student who was injured, a 14-year-old boy, was never identified.
Denver7 is going through the documents page-by-page right now. The documents, totaling over 600 pages, provide first-person accounts of exactly what unfolded that day. The documents include interviews with eyewitnesses — including students, teachers, neighbors, and even the shooter's sister — plus officer narratives from what they saw when they arrived on scene.
Here's a summary of some of the major themes we've uncovered thus far. This story will be updated as Denver7 continues to comb through the documents.
Warning signs
In interviews with law enforcement following the shooting, the shooter’s family and students who knew him gave varying accounts he was like and how he acted around others.
At least one student told investigators that the gunman had previously researched firearms on a school computer during 8th grade with some friends. One of those students is said to have reported the incident to a middle school teacher shortly after, “but nothing came of it.”
A friend of the shooter said he had edited videos in his camera roll "of past school shootings that were set to music." A friend also called him “pretty racist."
When asked if they were surprised to hear that he was involved in the school shooting, one friend said they weren’t.
A teacher who was interviewed also reported overhearing the shooter and another student talk about school shootings in class in the past.
Meanwhile, the gunman's father described him as a “quiet kid with few friends” who owned a BB gun, but said he never used it to shoot at animals on their property. His sister told law enforcement she had no indication her brother had many any plans to shoot up the school, only saying he had been bullied in the past.
His sister did, however, tell investigators he had anti-semitic views and had made derogatory comments toward women. She mentioned she was "worried about him" and said "he stopped talking about his friends and spent more time in his room.
Homemade tools, history books, Nazi artifacts and tactical clothing found in shooter’s bedroom
The trove of documents also provide more insight into what the shooter may have been reading or how he may have been preparing in the days, weeks, or months ahead of the shooting at the high school.
Deputies searching the gunman’s bedroom hours after the shooting had occurred found “a homemade ‘hatchet'-type of tool made out of cardboard and an unknown type of material to create ‘spikes’ along the edges of the ‘blade,’” and gas masks on a shelf, according to the documents.
On the suspect’s bookshelf, deputies found several books, including "American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15” by Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson, "A Hitler Youth in Poland: The Nazi Children's Evacuation Program During World War II (Jewish Lives),” a memoir by Jost Hermand, a German cultural critic and historian, and Don McCombs and Fred L. Worths' book, “World War II: 4,139 Strange and Fascinating Facts.”
Deputies also describe finding multiple swords affixed to the wall behind his bedroom door, with two large knives in sheaths just below the swords.
One of the deputies noted that it “appeared there was an empty space for a third knife. The knife in the middle was in a tan sheath, and on the handle of the knife, I observed a silver Nazi Eagle.”
Deputies searching his room also recalls finding, “various pieces of camouflage clothing lying on the floor; multiple double rifle magazine pouches either black or tan in color; a tan colored tactical helmet with black writing or drawings on it; a tan colored armored plate carrier with a black ‘level III’ plate near it; and two pairs of tan colored kneepads.”
Prior reporting by Denver7 shows the FBI was investigating the social media accounts connected to the 16-year-old shooter two months before the attack.
In July of last year, the FBI “opened an assessment into a social media account user whose identity was unknown and who was discussing the planning of a mass shooting with threats non-specific in nature,” a spokesperson from the FBI’s national office said in a statement to Denver7.
The feds were ultimately tipped off about the 16-year-old’s activities online by the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism. In a report released about five days after the shooting, the ADL noted the shooter had an alarming online presence dating back to December 2024. The report showed he was active on a gore forum where users watch videos of killings and violence, mixed in with content on white supremacism and antisemitism.
Students, teachers and law enforcement provide accounts of what they saw that day
The document provides more details about the actions of the students, the shooter, and responding law enforcement that day at Evergreen High School.
Some witnesses said they initially thought the gunfire was a dropped object or a bag of chips popping, a common noise at the school.
As awareness of the gunfire spread, students began to run. At that moment, the PA system announced “lockdown out of sight.”
Many students fled to Wulf Recreation Center, while others huddled in classrooms or hid in closets.
The report states that one student witness and his friend went to check out the loud noise. At that point, the shooter reportedly ran toward them with a gun, yelled a homophobic slur, and opened fire. The shooter continued shooting as they fled toward the library, striking one of the students.
After escaping through the library’s emergency exit, the teens ran up a hill. There, a driver stopped and asked what was happening. Once they told him there was a shooter, he drove them away. As they left, they saw the shooter run out of the school and jump a fence, according to the report.
Moments later, reports describe the shooter moving toward the south fence line, where a blood trail from a wounded student begins.
Multiple students interviewed who were in the band room at the time of the shooting describe the shooter smiling through one of the windows before firing shots.
The documents also include many accounts from officers who responded on the day of the shooting and worked to clear the school and escort teachers and students out.
Some observed blood trails in the schools’ hallways as well as shell casings. In the band room, one first-responder reported bullet holes in the glass window and what looked like blood. They also reported a student with blood on their face but who seemed uninjured.
Deputies also spoke with Paige Silverstone, mother of Matthew Silverstone.
She told deputies she received a call from Matthew’s phone but he didn’t speak. She only heard people say things like, “you’re okay,” “breathe,” “keep breathing” and “he’s actually got two” on the other end of the line but wasn’t sure who they were talking about. She later found out Matthew was in critical condition. Matthew’s family spoke with Denver7 about a week after the shooting at the high school.
His uncle, Kris Koehler, said it was important for him to speak up, so the world comes to know Matthew not just as a shooting victim, but as “the great, kind, gentle kid that Matthew is.”
You can view that story in the video player below:
Shooter’s confrontation and final movements
The shooter eventually moved southwest from the school toward S. Olive Road.
In an interview included in the docs with Deputy Thomas Hammetter, who was the first Jeffco Sheriff’s Office deputy on the scene and the first to make contact with the shooter, the deputy said he saw Matthew Silverstone laying on the ground with the shooter standing over him with a gun at the intersection of S. Olive Road and Buffalo Park Road.
The deputy said the shooter “never pointed the gun at him and at one point acknowledged that he would put the gun down.” But instead, the shooter turned away, “said that he could not hear him, and then placed the gun to the right side of his head and shot himself.”
Hammetter then got to Silverstone, who later stopped breathing. Hammetter then began CPR until an ambulance arrived and took over.
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