Canadian police said Wednesday an 18-year-old carried out a mass shooting in a remote mining town, killing six people at a local school, after slaying her mother and stepbrother.
Police commander Dwayne McDonald said authorities still don’t know the motive in Tuesday’s mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, but the shooter — who took her own life — was known to have mental health issues.
McDonald identified the shooter as Jesse Van Rootselaar, a transgender woman who was born biologically male and dropped out of the targeted high school four years ago.
McDonald revised the toll down to eight from nine, due to earlier confusion over the condition of one of the victims.
Officers who entered the town’s high school found six people dead — a 39-year-old woman teacher and five students — three 12-year-old girls and two boys, aged 13 and 12.
The shooter, armed with a long-barreled gun and a pistol, was found dead from “a self-inflicted gunshot wound” after the massacre, said McDonald, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police deputy commissioner in British Columbia.
The shooter’s other victims were her mother and stepbrother, and she was known to officers who had made multiple visits to their home in response to mental health calls, McDonald said.
The killings in the family home were discovered after another family member alerted neighbors, he said.
McDonald said the shooter had previously held a firearms license which had lapsed and that weapons had previously been confiscated from her residence — but were subsequently returned.
Flags will be lowered nationwide to half-staff for seven days following the tragedy, among the deadliest shootings in Canada’s history. Messages of support have flooded in from world leaders.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said “what happened has left our nation in shock and all of us in mourning.”
“These children and their teachers bore witness to unheard of cruelty. I want everyone to know this: our entire country stands with you, on behalf of all Canadians,” he said in an emotional address to parliament.
Tumbler Ridge, a tight-knit community of about 2,400 residents, lies in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies near the provincial border with Alberta, hundreds of kilometers from any major city.
Carney described it as a tough, blue-collar place of “miners, teachers, construction workers” who represent “the very best of Canada: resilient, compassionate and strong.”
“We’re one big family here,” Mayor Darryl Krakowka told public broadcaster CBC.
‘Will get through this’
“We will get through this. We will learn from this. But right now, it’s a time to come together, as Canadians always do,” Carney said.
He called off a planned trip to the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
Britain’s King Charles, the monarch of Canada, said in a statement that he and Queen Camilla were “profoundly shocked and saddened” by the attack.
“In such a closely connected town, every child’s name will be known and every family will be a neighbor,” he said.
School shootings remain rare in Canada, compared to the neighboring United States.
This tragedy ranks among the country’s deadliest, following the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting which claimed 22 lives and led to a ban on many assault weapons.
Small community
Tumbler Ridge student Darian Quist told Canadian broadcaster CBC he was in his mechanics class when there was an announcement that the school was in lockdown.
He said initially he “didn’t think anything was going on,” but started receiving “disturbing” photos of the carnage.
He stayed in lockdown for more than two hours until police stormed in, ordering everyone to put their hands up before escorting them out of the school.
Area schools will remain closed for the rest of the week.
Pastor George Rowe of Tumbler Ridge Fellowship Church told CBC that it was “very, very difficult to deal with.”
“Everybody here, practically, they know everybody…I don’t think it will be a big surprise when the name is released because you’re in a small community,” he said.
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