Colorado sheriff releases new information on timeline in Evergreen High School shooting
The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office on Friday released new information about the timeline in the Evergreen High School shooting in Colorado's foothills, revising the time it took for the first units to arrive. The statement released also takes a deeper look into the whereabouts of Evergreen High's school resource officer.
"We are aware of rumors about a so-called 'hit list,'" wrote the sheriff's office. "The Sheriff's Office has found no evidence of any such list through the course of the investigation."
The department has told CBS Colorado that is inclusive of not only Evergreen High School, but other schools attended by the 16-year-old gunman, who took his own life in the attack. Two students were critically hurt.
"We have no record of any prior reports or complaints involving this individual," wrote the Sheriff's Office addressing the question of whether there had been a report to Safe2Tell before Sept. 10, 2025.
The sheriff's office said the school resource officer who was assigned to both Evergreen and Conifer High Schools had left Evergreen to go to Conifer the morning of Sept. 10, before the shooting. After arriving at Conifer, the deputy was dispatched to a car accident nearby. Before he got there, says the statement, the call came out about the shooting at Evergreen High and he returned. Investigators have found no indication the shooter waited for the SRO to leave Evergreen before the attack.
The department addressed questions in the public realm about why law enforcement officers were knocking on doors at the school.
"While classrooms were locked down, some reported hearing officers identifying themselves and asking to open doors."
They credited the teachers and students with correctly following training and keeping doors locked. Once it is safe, wrote the department, "Deputies use school-provided keys to unlock them."
But what happened was not consistent, or in sync with what the teachers and students have been told to do.
"We strive for consistency in our training, but we realize that the intent of all law enforcement officers present that day was to ensure students' safety," wrote the department.
The sheriff says there is no information to share yet on how the gunman got the revolver used in the crime. They said there is no indication a bullet found in a stairwell in the school back in September of 2024 had any connection to the shooting a year later.
The department has said the young shooter was engaging with radicalized material online. An attempt to find out who was behind concerning anonymous postings later connected to the shooter was underway in July. The FBI did not fail to act to find out who was behind them, said investigators. There was an effort to obtain from social media companies the identity of the people involved.
"By law, these companies have up to 35 days to respond to each warrant, and typically two or three warrants are needed to determine who made a post and from where. That process was still underway when the shooting occurred."
The full emergency response timeline "based on Jeffcom 911 records" released by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office is as follows. It includes a slight timing revision based off of their earlier statement from the office that deputies responded within 2-and-a-half minutes to the scene:
• 12:21:14 - First shot fired inside the school
• 12:21:56 - Lockdown initiated by school staff
• 12:22:15 - First call came into 911 - a call-taker gathered information.
• 12:22:59 - Call transferred into a queue on a computer for dispatchers to then dispatch (Deputies can also see that queue. Based on the nature of the call, our first deputy began heading toward the school immediately (12:23:00), before it was officially dispatched.)
• 12:23:17 - Call opened and read by dispatcher
• 12:24:01 - Call toned and aired to patrol
• 12:24:09 - First responding unit was officially dispatched.
• 12:24:26 - Another deputy self-deployed toward the school.
• 12:27:22 - First unit on scene (this is a 3-minute response time - we originally
stated 2.5 minutes)
• 12:30:29 - Deputy confronts gunman at gunpoint
Shooter's movements - based on school surveillance video:
• 12:21:14 - First shot inside the school
• 12:21:26 - First shot at an individual
• 12:21:40 - First victim shot
• 12:23:30 - Shooter exits the building
• 12:23:30 - 12:26:21 - Shooter looks for people and then tries to get back into the school through several doors
• 12:27:21 - Shooter walks/runs across the track moving NE, then goes out of camera view
• 12:30:29 - Gunman at gunpoint confronted by deputy
• 12:31:37 - Life-saving measures started by deputies on the second victim
• 12:33:24 - Suspect reported down by self-inflicted wound
Note: The shooter either walked or ran throughout the school and fired several rounds at individuals as he encountered them and reloaded the gun several times as he moved.
