This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.
The parents whose children were at Evergreen High School when a 16-year-old opened fire, injuring two and then fatally shooting himself, still have a lot of questions about how and why it happened.
In the year since the shooting, after an investigation and a thorough report detailing what the sheriff’s office found and even some legislation passed to catch violent attacks before they happen, parents keep coming back to one question in particular: how the teenager got the gun he used in the attack.
There is no clear answer in this case, and Colorado’s gun laws, while more robust than most states’, were not applicable to the Evergreen shooting. Still, the incomplete picture fuels parents’ frustration and has them pointing to a broader challenge with Colorado’s safe storage laws and whether they could have prevented that horrific day.
On Sept. 10, 2025, Desmond Holly brought a Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver, which left scars, mental and physical, on students and rattled parents in the mountain town, about 30 minutes west of Denver.
According to a letter the family’s attorney sent investigators in January, the firearm was a family heirloom that was kept in a safe he could not access. In the letter, they also said the safe was only opened by his father and their children could not access it except during those brief moments the father had the safe open.
In February, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office said they considered charges for the shooter’s parents under two Colorado laws. Ultimately they determined there was not enough evidence to meet legal requirements to present the case to the district attorney.
“The trail seemed to grow cold to some degree,” said Fritz Krembs. He is the father of two students at Evergreen High School.
Unanswered questions
Cindy Mazeika, an Evergreen High school parent and former PTSA president, said that the nearly 700 hundred pages of records released in April by the sheriff’s office, which included witness statements, investigative reports and other records, did not answer how the teen was able to access the gun.
According to a file in that report, the shooter’s sister told investigators that all of the handguns at their home were in a safe, except one that was kept in their father’s room. She added that she and her brother weren’t allowed to be in the room when the safe was open.
Mazeika said she doesn’t understand why the sheriff’s office didn’t go after the parents further. She thinks the fact that the teenager was able to get the gun means the family was not following proper gun safety and storage standards.
“Is the sheriff's department telling us that it is OK if kids get a hold of our guns and shoot up a school? That is OK because we are not responsible if we didn’t see them take a weapon?” she wrote in a text to CPR.
Ultimately, it is in the hands of the sheriff's department to present the case for the district attorney to file criminal charges. While the sheriff’s office did have conversations with DA’s office staff, according to the sheriff’s office, they did not formally submit a criminal case for filing.
The district attorney’s office said in an email that to prosecute under the safe storage law, they would have to prove both elements of the law beyond a reasonable doubt. That means the person knew, or reasonably should have known, that a juvenile could gain access without permission and the person failed to responsibly and securely store a firearm as defined in the law.
Family spoke to law enforcement through an attorney
In a February press release, the sheriff’s office said the main challenge it encountered during the investigation was speaking with the shooter’s parents, which it said complicated efforts to determine how he got the firearm.
Other than a conversation with investigators at the hospital, the family spoke to the sheriff's office through their attorney, the sheriff's office said in an email to CPR.
The office said they use warrants and subpoenas to obtain certain evidence or to require a person to appear.
“However, those processes remain subject to constitutional and other legal protections, including the privilege against compelled self-incrimination,” the office wrote.
The office did carry out several warrants during the investigation, the report showed. But the family never agreed to a comprehensive interview with law enforcement.
Colorado Ceasefire, a gun violence-prevention organization that supported the safe-storage law, also raised concerns that the report didn’t provide an answer either.
“Unfortunately, the records do not reveal more about how the shooter accessed the gun he used, and possible violations of Colorado safe storage laws in the suspect’s home,” the organization wrote in a blog post.
Colorado’s safe-storage law
Colorado’s safe-storage law took effect in 2021, making it a Class 2 misdemeanor to fail to securely store a firearm when the owner knows or should reasonably know that a juvenile or prohibited person could access it.
The law gives gun owners several ways to secure the firearm, including storing it in a safe or other secure container or using a locking mechanism.
Erin Kelly, an assistant professor at the Injury and Violence Prevention Center at the University of Colorado Anschutz, said that states with safe storage laws generally have fewer unintentional and intentional firearm deaths among youth.
It’s part of a broader set of firearm regulations that has put Colorado among the 10 states with the strongest gun laws, according to Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
“Colorado has been a very active state and often at the front lines of developing and putting forth novel legislation on gun violence prevention,” said Jessie Ojeda, a state policy attorney with Giffords.
State Rep. Monica Duran, one of the authors of the law, said lawmakers didn’t want the requirements to be very burdensome. That was meant to account for families who might not be able to afford a gun safe, but could implement a trigger lock.
How the law works
The law doesn't make a gun owner automatically liable if a minor eventually gets access to a firearm. Prosecutors have to establish that the owner failed to securely store it and knew or reasonably should have known that a juvenile could gain access.
That distinction can make it complex, said Nate Marsh, a prosecutor in the 23rd Judicial District that covers Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties. He said it’s very case-specific, too, because of the interpretations of the law.
“There are some things where, gosh, you do everything right and something else happens,” he said.
The circumstances could be different, he said, for instance if a parent knew a child had figured out the safe's code but didn’t change it.
According to data from a 2023 survey, just under one-third of middle- and high-school respondents reported they could access a loaded firearm without permission. And of those, more than 50% said they could obtain a firearm in their home.
How the law works in real-time
Since 2021, there have been 181 safe-storage violations recorded as of April 2026, according to Kelly.
Laney Sheffel, the executive director of Colorado Ceasefire, said implementation has been a problem.
“The whole gun violence prevention sector in this area is starting to look more towards implementation. And are these laws doing what they need to? And if not, what's getting in the way?” Sheffel said.
While Colorado Ceasefire doesn't push for prosecutions – the group said they shared parents’ frustration about the outcome of the Evergreen case.
“It just makes you feel a little bit crazy when we're seeing children die because of such simple solutions. We know in Evergreen that the family had a gun safe. It was left open at some point. And the kid was able to get ahold of the gun that caused such a huge tragedy,” Sheffel said. “And we're really disappointed that the Jefferson County Sheriff did not try to enforce that law.”
What the investigation found
The massive release of documents this spring provided more information on the shooter's personal life. It contained interviews with his family members, teachers and others who knew him.
Investigators found he was interested in past school shootings, weapons, and had Nazi World War II memorabilia in his room, including a gas mask.
The Jefferson County Sheriff's office said investigators documented and evaluated those items but their presence did not establish a motive or prove what his parents knew.
The investigation found disturbing videos on his social media accounts, which his family, in an email sent to investigators, said they did not follow him on.
Five-year review of the law comes due
Lawmaker Duran said legislators should be open to revisiting the law five years after its passage and evaluating its effectiveness. When asked about what her response would be to families who have expressed disappointment with this statute not being applied in the Evergreen case, she said:
“I think out of tragedy, we learn a lot. Not at the moment, but we do afterwards. And that's where I feel we're at. What have we learned? What can we do?”
Evergreen parent Krembs said he thinks the law wasn't enough to prevent the shooting. So the rattled parent looked to law enforcement and elected officials for answers.
“We have laws in this state related to keeping handguns out of the hands of minors. Yet here a minor is with a handgun in a school,” he said. “Our people will show up. They'll do all they can that day. But then when it comes to holding people accountable, the appetite to do that wasn't really there in that case.”
Legislators enacted changes to legal requirements for social media companies' response times to warrants. It was an aspect of the Evergreen case that many think would have prevented the shooting.
What does accountability look like to Evergreen parents?
If current laws don’t go far enough, Krembs is wondering what accountability should look like when a child gets access to a gun and uses it. While there were no fatalities in Evergreen, he’s said he’s been thinking about two cases where parents faced criminal charges after their children carried out school shootings.
“Conversely, the Jeffco Sheriff's Office wasn't even compelled to get Desmond Holly's parents to even speak to them,” Krembs said.
This Evergreen case was different in terms of what investigators found, the shooter's parents knew, and how the family stored their guns. But community members are still struggling to understand how to find closure with no one to blame in court.
Krembs reflected on the first school shooting he remembered in 1999 at Columbine High School. He was a freshman in college.
“The pattern is this happens, people become upset. It hits the news cycle for a while and then moves on to the next thing. And like anything else, if nothing changes, then nothing changes,” Krembs said.
