September 10, 2025. It’s a date that’s basically burned into the collective memory of the country now, but for two very different reasons that collided in the most violent way possible. Most of the headlines you see when you search for that day focus on the sniper attack at Utah Valley University. It makes sense. The assassination of a figure as massive as Charlie Kirk is a generational news event.
But while the world was watching the chaos in Orem, Utah, another nightmare was unfolding just 450 miles to the east.
Evergreen, Colorado. A quiet mountain town. 12:24 p.m. Just sixty seconds after the trigger was pulled in Utah, a 16-year-old student at Evergreen High School started a different kind of horror. It’s wild how timing works. One minute, the country is processing a high-profile political killing; the next, parents in Jefferson County are getting the "Lockdown" text every parent in America has nightmares about.
The Evergreen High School Shooting: More Than Just a Footnote
Honestly, the Evergreen shooting often gets treated like a side story to the Kirk assassination. That's a mistake. If you look at the timeline, the two events are weirdly synchronized. At 12:23 p.m., Kirk was shot during his "American Comeback" tour. At 12:24 p.m., the first 911 calls flooded the Jefferson County dispatch from the high school.
Desmond Holly, the 16-year-old suspect, didn't have a high-powered sniper rifle. He had a revolver. He didn't have a rooftop vantage point. He was right there in the halls, among his classmates.
He started shooting inside the building first. One student was hit near the lockers. Then, Holly moved outside, crossing the football field. He fired again, striking an 18-year-old student named Matthew Silverstone near the corner of Olive Street and Buffalo Park Road. By the time deputies arrived—which was incredibly fast, about two and a half minutes—the shooter had turned the gun on himself.
He was dead. Two other students were fighting for their lives.
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Why the "Same Day" Connection Matters
People keep searching for the school shooting same day as Kirk because there's this nagging sense that they were linked. Was it a coordinated "day of rage"? Was it a coincidence?
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, specifically spokesperson Jacki Kelley, has been pretty transparent about what they found in Holly's background. They used the term "radicalized." They mentioned an "extremist network." But they haven't explicitly said, "Yes, he did this because of what happened in Utah."
Actually, the timing suggests he couldn't have even known the Kirk shooting was successful before he started his own attack. He was likely already in position.
What's really chilling is the atmosphere of that week. Just two weeks prior, there was a shooting at a Catholic school Mass in Minneapolis. Gun violence was already peaking in the national conversation. Then, in the span of one minute on a Wednesday afternoon, the two primary "types" of American gun violence—the political assassination and the school shooting—happened simultaneously.
Breaking Down the Aftermath in Evergreen
If you’ve ever been to Evergreen, you know it’s the kind of place people move to to escape this kind of thing. It’s beautiful, wooded, and sits in the same county as Columbine. That weight is heavy.
Here is the reality of the victims that day:
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- Matthew Silverstone: 18 years old. He was the student shot outside near the street. An eyewitness, Delmar Martinez, actually caught some of it on video while he was working nearby. He saw a struggle, then the shot.
- The Second Victim: Also a student, shot inside the school. This student's name was kept more private initially, but we know they were transported in critical condition to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Lakewood.
- The School Safety Gap: This is a detail that bothers a lot of people. Evergreen High usually has a School Resource Officer (SRO). But on September 10, the SRO was on leave, and the deputy covering the shift had been called away to a traffic accident just before the shooting started.
There was nobody there to stop him for those first 150 seconds.
The Political Firestorm
You can’t talk about the school shooting same day as Kirk without mentioning the fallout in Washington and Denver. It was messy.
In the Colorado state legislature, there was literally a shouting match. Democrats like Rep. Brittany Pettersen were trying to talk about the need for gun control in the wake of the Evergreen tragedy. At the same time, Republicans were mourning Kirk and calling his death a result of leftist rhetoric.
Both sides felt the other was ignoring "their" tragedy.
Some Democrats were accused of not acknowledging the Kirk assassination's gravity, while some Republicans were accused of stepping over the bodies of the Evergreen students to talk about a political influencer. It was a perfect microcosm of how fractured the country had become by 2025.
What Most People Get Wrong About September 10
The biggest misconception? That these were the same "kind" of crime.
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The Kirk assassination was a planned, long-distance sniper attack by a 22-year-old (Tyler James Robinson) with a Mauser bolt-action rifle. It was a political statement.
The Evergreen shooting was a 16-year-old with a handgun and "a lot of ammunition" who targeted his own school. While investigators say Holly was radicalized by extremist groups, the "school shooting" profile is vastly different from a political assassination.
One was a strike at a public figure; the other was a strike at a community’s heart.
Practical Steps and Lessons
If you’re a parent or a student looking at these events, it’s easy to feel hopeless. But there are specific things that actually made a difference that day in Colorado.
- Safety Protocols Work: The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office credited teachers and students with saving lives. They followed the lockdown procedures they’d practiced. Because they locked those doors, Holly couldn't reach more students inside the building.
- The SRO Dilemma: The fact that the SRO was missing because of a traffic accident has sparked a huge debate about "shared" security roles. If you’re involved in school boards, asking about dedicated, non-dispatched security is a valid move.
- Mental Health Monitoring: The FBI was reportedly investigating an account linked to Holly before the shooting. This highlights the "see something, say something" reality. It’s not just a catchphrase; it’s often the only line of defense before the 911 call happens.
September 10 wasn't just the day Charlie Kirk died. It was the day Evergreen lost its innocence, too. We have to remember both if we're ever going to figure out how to stop the next Wednesday from looking like this one.
To help your own community, look into the specific SRO policies at your local schools and ensure that security personnel aren't being pulled away for routine traffic duties, leaving campuses vulnerable. Check in on the "Threat Assessment" teams at your district to see how they handle digital "red flags" before they turn into physical reality.