The FBI was working to identify the person behind the Evergreen High School shooter’s social media accounts through search warrants when the attack happened, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said Friday.
Sheriff’s officials released a lengthy statement Friday afternoon addressing “rumors” being circulated about the Sept. 10 school shooting that seriously injured two students.
The families of victims Matthew Silverstone, 18, and a 14-year-old boy who has not been publicly identified previously said the teens confronted the shooter and tried to alert their classmates before they were shot.
The shooter, 16-year-old Desmond Holly, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In the wake of the shooting, FBI officials said the agency began investigating accounts later linked to Holly but did not identify him or take any further action before the attack.
“During the assessment investigation, the identity of the account user remained unknown, and thus there was no probable cause for arrest or additional law enforcement action at the federal level,” FBI officials said in September.
But that was not the whole picture, according to the sheriff’s office.
The FBI’s New York office was in the process of obtaining and sending search warrants to social media companies for information about Holly’s accounts when the shooting happened, sheriff’s officials said Friday.
“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,” Jefferson County officials wrote. “That process was still underway when the shooting occurred. The FBI did not fail to act; this delay is a limitation of the current legal system.”
FBI Denver’s field office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Jefferson County sheriff, Reggie Marinelli, is now working to draft a federal bill that will address delays in search warrants and add a mandate for faster responses, the agency said.
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