EVERGREEN — Under a gray sky reflecting the grief rippling across Evergreen, a crowd of students, parents and community members gathered Thursday night to comfort one another and begin the process of healing a day after a shooting at Evergreen High School that injured two students and left the shooter dead.
The crowd stretched across the entirety of Buchanan Ball Fields during a vigil that carried on as day darkened into night: High schoolers hugged each other tightly. Young children decorated pieces of cloth to be stitched together into a “hope flag” that will hang at Evergreen High School. A woman welcomed attendees with a yellow sign, dotted with hand-drawn hearts, that read, “You Are Loved E.H.S.”
The vigil was one of several community events that capped Thursday, as high school staff, students and families tried to make sense of a shooting that sent scores of confused and terrified students fleeing into strangers’ homes and others locking themselves in classrooms and crouching down away from windows and doors.
Jefferson County law enforcement Thursday morning identified a suspect in the shooting, 16-year-old Desmond Holly, a student at the high school who one classmate described as quiet and someone who seemed like a regular kid.
The investigation into the shooting and the suspect is ongoing, with law enforcement searching Desmond’s home, cellphone, locker and other belongings. Investigators say they have so far determined the student had been “radicalized through an extremist network.”
Gov. Jared Polis was among the local and state leaders who addressed the audience of about 2,000 people at the park vigil, offering words to both console and buoy them in the aftermath of Colorado’s latest act of school violence.
“While it’s a shame that it was these tragic circumstances that brought us together, it’s important that we make the most of this brotherhood and sisterhood and understand that, yes, we can have a positive vision for how we can move forward,” Polis said.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis speaks at a vigil for the shooting at Evergreen High School, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025, at Buchanan Fields in Evergreen, Colorado. (Jeremy Sparig, Special to The Colorado Sun)He assured the community that people all across the state and even world — he said he has heard from people overseas — are supporting Evergreen and praying for the recovery of the two wounded students.
“There’s no answer,” Polis said. “There’ll be stories and research and things put out about how the perpetrator was radicalized or what the motives might have been, but it’ll never be an answer that’s sufficient because there is no answer for these kinds of horrific, violent acts. But we can find consolation in one another, in faith, in knowing that the people of Colorado stand with each and every one of you, with each and every one of us, on this recovery journey.”
Polis and other speakers praised teachers, staff and students at Evergreen High School for following emergency protocols, which he credits for saving lives.
“Together, we will get through this,” he said, calling out overlapping moments of tragedy between the shooting, the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack and the assassination of conservative political analyst Charlie Kirk in Utah. “We are better than this. You know we are better than this, and together we will show that we will triumph over evil.”
The vigil was designed to thread the community together and serve as a protective space for families and students, giving them immediate resources as they continue to reel from the shooting. Mental health professionals were on site to listen. An acupuncturist provided treatments in reclining chairs. Tables of food awaited attendees with an ice cream truck parked nearby.
The evening also filled the park with soft music. Before remarks, a lone musician strum a guitar on stage, singing, “Where do we go from here? Where do we turn?” and, later on, “Where’s all the innocence? Where’s all the innocence? Where’s all the innocence gone, gone, gone?”
Community members bowed their heads, some wiping away tears, while local pastors led prayers and opened up about wrestling with their own heartache, assuring kids it was OK to struggle with their emotions and nudging them to talk to someone.
Evan Smith, student ministry director at Flatirons Community Church in Genesee, said he thought hard about how to find the right words for a hurting crowd.
People attend a vigil for the shooting at Evergreen High School, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025, at Buchanan Fields in Evergreen, Colorado. (Jeremy Sparig, Special to The Colorado Sun)“I struggle with what to say because I don’t think there is anything to say,” Smith said. “There’s nothing that I can say that will take the pain away. There’s nothing that I can say that will take the anger away. There’s nothing I can say that will make the healing happen or normalize anything, and I just feel the weight of that.”
Smith said he’s heard students express a range of emotions. Some feel angry. Others are sad. And others are lost in a sense of numbness or disbelief.
He urged the community to wrap its arms around all students.
“If we’re going to claim this as our town, we get to claim these kids as our kids,” Smith said. “And I don’t care if they sit at your dinner table or not. They’re your kids, too. And we need to own that and we need to come around them and we need to be a safe circle of support for them.”
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