Decapitation politics

 some hatred cannot be negotiated with.”

An hour later and one state away, 16-year old Desmond Holly shot up Evergreen High School, putting two of his classmates in the hospital before taking his own life. The ADL describes that Holly had an account on an online gore site where he had celebrated far right shootings and seemed to speak in advance of his attack.

Holly had an account on the gore forum WatchPeopleDie, where he had commented on posts about shootings in Parkland (2018),  Buffalo (2022) and at a Quebec City mosque (2017).

Holly appears to have joined the gore site on December 26, 2024, during the month window between the school shootings at Abundant Life Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, and Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee.

Holly is one of several mass attackers who have been active on the platform.

Groundbreaking research from ADL Center on Extremism in August 2025 revealed that Natalie Rupnow and Solomon Henderson, the perpetrators of the Madison and Nashville school shootings, also used the site. As an example, in August, a Moroccan teenager announced plans to livestream a mass stabbing and shared a manifesto on WatchPeopleDie, as well as X and 8kun.

Holly also collected tactical gear, adorned that gear with extremist symbols and posted content emulating former shooters such as Rupnow and the 1999 Columbine High School shooters. Like many attackers, Holly assembled his gear in a piecemeal fashion, drawing inspiration from the equipment used by previous mass shooters. For example, Holly posted a now-deleted TikTok video in which he modelled a tactical helmet and a gas mask; the post’s background music featured a Serbian folk song that Brenton Tarrant played while livestreaming the 2019 Christchurch Mosque shootings.

Underneath his post, Holly engaged with several comments in a manner that suggested he was close to committing his own attack. He liked one comment reading, “You got close to a full setup now man time to make a move 👍.” He also liked a comment reading, “Just need an gopro its gonan be cool an pov [sic],” and responded, “A GoPro, battery, ear protection, and maybe a patch.” Responding to another commenter, he wrote, “I’m planning on getting a camera instead.”

The Evergreen shooting, like the Annunciation school shooting — before which Robin Westman posted videos cheering school shooters in advance of her attack — was probably preventable.

In seemingly stream-of-consciousness videos that she posted, the assailant fixated on guns, violence and school shooters. She displayed her own cache of weapons, bullets and what appear to be explosive devices, scrawled with antisemitic and racist language and threats against President Trump.