DENVER — The FBI was investigating the social media accounts connected to the 16-year-old boy who shot two of his classmates before turning the gun on himself two months before the attack at Evergreen High School last week, a spokesperson with the federal agency confirmed with Denver7 Monday.
Back in July, 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.
But because the FBI wasn’t able to identify the individual behind those accounts, “there was no probable cause for arrest or additional law enforcement action at the federal level,” the spokesperson added.
The FBI continued to investigate those social media accounts to try to pin down a name and location for the user until the day of the shooting at Evergreen High School last Wednesday, according to the statement.
The feds were tipped off about the 16-year-old’s activities online by the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, according to Oren Segal, the organization’s senior vice president of counter-extremism and intelligence.
“We shared profiles and activity at the time with law enforcement for actions they deemed necessary based on what was available at the time. We have since learned those profiles belonged to the individual responsible for the shooting in Evergreen,” Segal said in a statement, adding the organization regularly shares alerts and updates about potential acts of extremism with law enforcement.
Shooter’s alarming online activity linked to violence, white supremacy
The shooter’s alarming online activity, which began in December, 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, according to a report released Friday by the ADL’s Center on Extremism. That same website was also visited by two other school shooting suspects in Wisconsin and Tennessee before those attacks were carried out, the ADL added.
TikTok accounts tied to the shooter 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 officials told the Associated Press accounts associated with the gunman had been banned.
The report notes that a few days before Wednesday's shooting, the 16-year-old gunman posted a TikTok video posing in a similar way to how the Wisconsin shooter posed before killing two people in December. He included a photo of the Wisconsin shooter in a post in which the gunman wore black T-shirt with “WRATH” written on the front.
Evergreen
Evergreen High shooter, 16, had been 'radicalized,' JCSO says
He also posted videos showing how he had made the shirt similar to one worn by a gunman in the Columbine High School massacre that killed 14 people in 1999, per the ADL report.
Some TikTok posts shared by the ADL show one user encouraging the 16-year-old gunman to be a “hero,” a term it says white supremacists use to refer to successfully ideologically motivated attackers.
The person also told the shooter 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.
The gunman 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.
The ADL's report concludes that "[y]oung people can readily access extremist content and visual depictions of graphic violence that are celebrated by users of the platform, potentially desensitizing them to such content and increasing the risk of ideologically motivated violence."
Investigation into the shooter’s motive continues
The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office has declined to comment on the ADL's findings or discuss its investigation into the shooting, but a spokeswoman said last week the actions of teachers and students as chaos unfolded inside the campus “saved lives” as the shooter, armed with a revolver, “would fire and reload, fire and reload, fire and reload.”
“This went on and on and as he did that, he tried to find new targets,” said Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Jacki Kelley. “He came up on a roadblock on many of those doors. He couldn’t get to those kids.”
Though the shooter’s parents have been cooperative throughout the investigation so far, it’s not clear if they will face any criminal charges in connection with the shooting. Kelley warned last week “everything is on the table when it comes to looking at this investigation” but added they had not yet run into a “roadblock” with the shooter’s family.
Evergreen
‘Just loud pops’: Students, parents describe Evergreen High School shooting
Classes at Evergreen High School were still canceled following last week's shooting and it's not known when they will resume.
The two victims in the shooting remain hospitalized in serious and critical conditions, hospital officials said Monday.
Also on Monday, deputies in Jefferson County said the school will have a full-time school resource officer (SRO) going forward, after concerns were raised twice by parents during PTA meetings about the lack of a school officer during the attack.
Previously, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said the school had a full-time SRO, but they were on medical leave at the time of the shooting. To fill in the gap, Evergreen High had been utilizing part-time SROs, Kelley said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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