Colorado school teen shooter had an account on "violent gore" site months before shooting, ADL says

Source: CBS News

September 14, 2025 / 9:20 AM EDT


A teen who opened fire in a Colorado high school this week was active on a so-called "violent gore" site months before the attack, the Anti-Defamation League said in a report released Friday.

Colorado officials said Desmond Holly, 16, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot after injuring two students at Evergreen High School, had been "radicalized by an extremist network," but did not provide further details.

According to the ADL report, several school shooters in the past year, including Holly, had been active on the same website, which the organization says is known for hosting content backing white supremacist ideas as well as material portraying graphic violence against both people and animals. People can navigate to the website, WatchPeopleDie, and access a forum where they can watch real images of beheadings, shootings and other violence. The site started on Reddit, before being banned in March 2019.

"We're talking about thousands of people who are on these spaces," ADL Senior Vice President of Counter-Extremism and Intelligence, Oren Segal, told CBS News. "There's no friction to access— anybody can do it."

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colorado-school-shooter-violent-gore-site-adl/