A 14-year-old student, who survived a shooting at Evergreen High School in Colorado earlier this month, confronted the gunman and allowed his peers to flee, his family has revealed.
It was around noon on Wednesday September 10 when Desmond Holly, 16, fired about 20 rounds at his classmates at the Jefferson County school, police said. Within minutes, Holly shot two students with a handgun, one inside and one outside the school, according to authorities.
When police confronted the gunman, he took his own life. The two survivors, one of whom has been identified as 18-year-old Matthew Silverstone, and the other a 14-year-old boy who hasn’t been publicly named, suffered critical injuries.
It’s been a little over two weeks since the shooting, with the community still reeling from the traumatic event. The family of the 14-year-old has decided to speak about the moments their son was “face-to-face” with “a violent school shooter filled with anger and hatred.”
In a statement provided by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Thursday, the family said their son and his friend confronted the gunman, “which undoubtedly allowed time for more students to flee and the school to lock down.”
“Our son was shot at close range. Yet, he was able to run from the school to save his own life,” the statement continued.
As the boy and his friend ran through the school to escape the shooter, they alerted their fellow classmates, the family said, adding that their son was able to get “critical first aid” once outside the school.
The boy remains hospitalized after undergoing multiple surgeries.
“In those terrifying moments, our son showed a level of bravery, strength, and will to survive that no child should ever be asked to display,” the family said.
Once the boy was able to communicate with his family, he gave them a clear message: “The adults responsible for protecting children must take real, meaningful action so that no child or family endures this kind of horror – in school or anywhere,” the statement read.
Silverstone’s family has also spoken out in the wake of the shooting. His uncle, Kris Koehler, described his nephew as “kind” and “gentle” in a video shared by the sheriff’s office last week.
Koehler said Silverstone’s mom hasn’t left his hospital bedside since the shooting “for fear that if something were to happen, she wants to be right there.”
“He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body,” Koehler said of his nephew. “He would go out of his way to help anybody.”
Koehler read a card a fellow student gave to Matthew, describing how he helped his classmates during the shooting.
“I’ve heard from many different people about what you did, and all I can say is: Thank you…I had heard from many about how you were telling people to get away when they were coming back from lunch. I knew many of these people, and I can not thank you enough for getting them out of there,” the card read.
Another card read, “Thank you for your quick thinking and action during an emergency. So many of us owe our safety to you. It is truly an honor to be your classmate.”
Koehler said the family is “coming to grips with what could potentially be a life-long recovery.”
A GoFundMe page created to help pay for Silverstone’s medical care said he is facing multiple surgeries. It has raised more than $484,000. The family of the 14-year-old victim has asked people to direct their donations to Silverstone’s fundraiser.
Public Information Officer Jacki Kelley previously shared some grim details about the shooting, saying that the gunman kept reloading his revolver.
“He would fire and reload. Fire and reload. Fire and reload,” Kelley said at a press conference a day after the shooting. “And as he did that, he tried to find new targets.”
Kelley said Holly was “radicalized by some extremist network.” The FBI, which is conducting its own investigation into the shooting, told Fox News Digital the agency was tipped off about Holly’s online activity in July but did not know his identity at the time.
Jefferson County is also where the Columbine school shooting occurred in 1999, which saw 12 students and one teacher killed. Another student, who was paralyzed from the waist down in the shooting, died in February, and the coroner ruled her death a homicide, per The New York Times.
“It really sucks that we’re here again. We’ve had our fair share of school shootings,” Kelley said.
