On September 10, 2025, at Evergreen High School, there was a shooting. The shooter was a 16 year old student named Desmond Holly. He shot two students, then ended his own life. One of those students was released from the hospital, but the other is still hospitalized and in critical condition.
The shooter took a revolver and lots of ammunition to the school. He waited till lunch time to start shooting. He reloaded his hand gun numerous times as he made his marks around the school looking for the people to harm. The police were called by many people around 12:30 PM about an active shooter inside the halls of Evergreen High School. Within minutes of the police being called, Holly fired up to 20 rounds in about nine minutes. He shot behind the school and in the school.
Holly was able to shoot one student inside the school who was injured heavily before the police got there. It took the police two and half minutes for them to get to the school. When they arrived, they surrounded Holly and yelled at him repeatedly to put the gun down. Then another gun shot went off and Holly shot another student outside of the school. Right after he shot the other student he shot himself, taking his own life. One of the students who got shot is an 18 year old named Matthew Silverstone. After he got shot he remained in critical condition at St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood. The other victim, whose identity has not been released, was in serious condition. The FBI has not yet discovered why Holly shot at those students, if Holly targeted them or if he just shot at random.
There have still been many unsolved questions about the shooter. For example, how did he get the gun in the first place, when he is too young to have purchased it by himself. However, the FBI has pinpointed some ideas of Holly’s motive to why he would want to start his own school shooting. The FBI found that Holly has had an interest in past mass shootings like Columbine High School mass shooting and shared neo-Nazi views online. The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Center of Extremism looked into Holly’s online activity.
The ADL said on Friday, September 19th, “Holly had an account on the gore forum WatchPeopleDie, where he had commented on posts about shootings in Parkland (2018), Buffalo (2022), and at a Quebec City mosque (2017).”
Holly also was collecting tactical gear and adorned it with extremist symbols. He was also posting content that follows other school shooters and supported them.
A freshman from Pitman High School named Ava Velasquez said,
“I know that the school shooting was at a high school, it was a 16 year old kid shooter who went to school and shot two kids, then shot himself after. I think it is horrible. I feel that a lot of the time there is no intent towards it, it is not that the kid was getting bullied by another kid, but more so if something is going on within themselves. Kids just go to school and shoot other kids, it is just wrong. I also feel that it has been happening a lot, not only school shootings, but threats to schools. I feel that a lot of school shootings have been happening now from 2020 to 2025. It has been happening more recently and there has been a lot going on. I think it is scary to go to school with school shootings happening everywhere. Even here at Pitman, we have gotten threats before, it is scary because you don’t know if people are not going to come with their threat or if they are. Then you hear all the stories about school shootings in Colorado and other places and they are killing innocent kids. You don’t know what is going to happen and who they are going to get.”
A teacher at Pitman High School named Brian Hofsteen said, “I have not heard about this school shooting, but I have heard about many others. Students need to check themselves and check others about things they may be having doubts about. Students need to keep track of their mental state and try to keep track of others mental states. They need to seek out the resources that are out there for them. They should keep aware of things that are happening around them and report any problems that have been coming up. There have definitely been more school shootings happening and I don’t feel scared or afraid of going to school at all.”
Even though the police did a lot, the sheriff’s office gave the credit to the school employees because they put their active shooter training to work quickly. Even though the deputies responded quickly, the actions taken by students, teachers and staff inside the school saved many lives. The policemen thought that if the school didn’t activate their lockdown protocol, there would have been a lot more casualties than there were.