Five minutes. That’s how fast deputies reached the gunman at Evergreen High School after the first 911 calls on Wednesday. By then, two students had been shot. The attacker, a fellow student armed with a handgun, later died at a hospital from a self-inflicted wound. One victim remains in critical condition; the other is expected to survive.
The Evergreen High School shooting unfolded just before 12:30 p.m. in the foothills west of Denver, a region that knows this kind of trauma far too well. Witnesses say the violence spilled across parts of the campus, both inside and outside, turning a lunch period into a scramble for cover and a school day into a full-scale emergency.
What happened at Evergreen High School
Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Jacki Kelley said the shooter was believed to be a current student. No officers fired their weapons during the response. Investigators say the attack involved a handgun, and they are still piecing together the sequence of shots and movement across the grounds.
The first 911 calls triggered a wave of law enforcement. Hundreds of officers, including federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, converged on the campus. Many came unprompted—a reflex, Kelley noted, born from years of training and hard lessons in Colorado.
When deputies moved in, students were already fleeing. Backpacks and jackets were left in doorways and scattered near picnic tables. Some students and staff took shelter in nearby homes. The school and surrounding area went into an immediate lockdown as officers cleared the campus building by building.
Two injured students were rushed to CommonSpirit St. Anthony’s Hospital in Lakewood. As of Wednesday evening, one was in critical condition; the other had non-life-threatening injuries. The shooter, also transported to the hospital, died hours later from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Freshman Cameron Jones was eating lunch outside when the first shots cracked the calm. “I thought this was like a one-in-a-million thing, and it still feels surreal that it happened,” he said. Parents scrambled to reach their kids by text, then waited through the tense reunification process. “If I’m honest, I always feared it was ‘When, not if?’” said parent Jen Weber, who grew up in Evergreen. “I never thought it would happen here.”
Jefferson County Public Schools canceled Thursday classes for the Evergreen and Conifer articulation area and called off all classes at Evergreen High for the rest of the week. Parents were told to avoid the high school and meet students at Bergen Meadow Elementary, which served as the reunification point.
Superintendent Tracy Dorland, her voice tight with anger, said she is “devastated” and “angry” that students once again faced mortal danger in a place meant for learning. Colorado Governor Jared Polis called the shooting “senseless” and said the state is ready to support the community and the investigation.
By late afternoon, the high school had become a sprawling crime scene. Yellow tape ringed large sections of campus while investigators photographed shell casings, mapped trajectories, and collected personal items left behind during the evacuation. Detectives will need days—maybe weeks—to reconstruct the timeline and confirm how the shooter moved and when each shot was fired.
Community response and the broader context
Colorado has carried a heavy burden with school shootings since Columbine in 1999. The Evergreen attack marks at least the 19th shooting in or near a Colorado school since then, a grim tally that shapes how local agencies train and how quickly they mobilize. Jefferson County, home to Columbine and now Evergreen, has built one of the nation’s most practiced response playbooks. That training showed up in the minutes it took to confront the gunman and secure the campus.
Still, the trauma lingers long after the sirens fade. District leaders said crisis counselors will be available for students, staff, and families. Expect a staggered reopening: more officers on campus, a tighter perimeter, and controlled entry points as classes resume.
The investigation is just getting started. Detectives will work to answer basic questions: where the gun came from, how it was accessed, whether anyone noticed warning signs, and what the shooter posted or messaged beforehand. They’ll review security cameras, phone records, and interviews with classmates and teachers. ATF agents typically help trace the firearm’s origin and transfer history, a step that can clarify whether it was purchased, borrowed, or obtained unlawfully.
Here’s what authorities commonly examine in a case like this:
- Weapon source and storage: who owned the handgun and how it was secured
- Digital trail: texts, social media, gaming chats, and search history
- Behavioral indicators: recent conflicts, threats, isolation, or notable changes
- School protocols: how lockdowns, evacuations, and alerts worked in real time
- Emergency response: dispatch timelines, officer movement, and medical transport
Colorado’s policy backdrop will surface in the coming days. The state has universal background checks and a “red flag” law that lets judges temporarily remove guns from people deemed a danger to themselves or others; lawmakers expanded who can request those orders in recent years. Safe storage requirements are on the books, as are penalties for providing firearms to minors. Whether any of those policies could have interrupted what happened at Evergreen is a question investigators—and the community—will wrestle with once the facts are clearer.
For Evergreen families, the focus is immediate: checking on friends, connecting with counselors, and preparing for a return to campus steeped in grief. Administrators will outline next steps, including memorial plans, modified schedules, and how to retrieve items left behind during the evacuation. Students will get support for everything from navigating crowded hallways again to recognizing stress reactions like sleeplessness, flashbacks, or numbness—common in the days after a traumatic event.
Law enforcement plans to maintain a visible presence around the school through the week. That helps deter threats, but it also signals something less tactical: reassuring students that the adults in charge are staying put, even as the investigation moves from sirens to paperwork.
Officials have not released the shooter’s identity or a motive. That will come later, after next-of-kin notifications and more interviews. The Sheriff’s Office is also asking anyone who saw or recorded anything near the school before, during, or after the shooting to come forward. Tips, videos, and even small observations often shape the final timeline.
Parents and students who were part of the evacuation may be contacted again for follow-up statements. Investigators will compare their accounts against each other and against any available camera footage. Those details can confirm when officers first made contact, how many shots were fired, and whether the weapon malfunctioned or was reloaded.
As the school district recalibrates, attention will turn to prevention: the health of school climate, the role of anonymous reporting lines, and how warning signs—if any—move from a tip to a trained response. Jefferson County schools emphasize See Something, Say Something programs, but those efforts work best when students trust that reporting won’t backfire socially and that adults will act quickly.
For a ninth grader like Cameron Jones, the story is simpler: lunch on a warm day, a noise that didn’t fit, the instinct to run. For parents like Jen Weber, it’s the text no one wants to get, followed by hours of waiting. For Evergreen, it’s the return to classrooms with the weight of a new history that no community wants, and a promise from leaders—from the superintendent to the governor—that help is not going anywhere.
The district will issue updates on schedules and services, including when students can safely return to campus and how families can access counseling. Authorities will brief the public again as they verify key facts and learn more about the gun and the shooter’s path to that moment just before 12:30 p.m. The school’s recovery will take longer. The investigation will, too.
