The person accused of fatally shooting eight people and injuring two dozen more in the tiny Canadian town of Tumbler Ridge was identified by police Wednesday as Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18.
Van Rootselaar was born male but had been transitioning to female for the past six years, said Dwayne McDonald, deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The teenager fatally shot a 39-year-old woman believed to be their mother and their 11-year-old stepbrother Tuesday at their home in Tumbler Ridge, in British Columbia, McDonald said.
Then Van Rootselaar barged into Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and killed six other people before dying by suicide, McDonald said.
Five of the victims at the school were children: three 12-year-old girls and two boys, one 12 years old and the other 13.
"They were quite young," McDonald said.
The other victim was a 39-year-old female teacher, said McDonald, who didn’t give their names.
Police initially reported that the shooter had killed seven people at the school. But a wounded woman who authorities had said had died on the way to a hospital survived and was in critical but stable condition.
It was one of the country's deadliest mass shootings.
McDonald didn’t offer details about a motive. Police had responded to Van Rootselaar’s home several times in recent years for mental health-related calls, he said.
McDonald said firearms were seized from the home during those calls. But the lawful owner of the firearms, whom he didn’t identify, successfully petitioned to have the weapons returned, the police official said.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether any of those firearms were used in Tuesday's mass shooting.
McDonald said Van Rootselaar was familiar with the layout of the school because they had been a student there. They dropped out about four years ago.
Tumbler Ridge, a town of 2,400 people in a remote corner of British Columbia, remained in shock.
“I will know every victim,” Mayor Darryl Krakowka told the CBC on Tuesday after he emerged from the town hall where he and other workers had taken shelter during the shooting.
“I’ve been here 19 years, and we’re a small community,” he said. “I don’t call them residents. I call them family.”
Police received reports of an active shooter around 1:20 p.m. Tuesday, and the town immediately went into lockdown.
While police searched the campus, students were marched out of the building with their hands up and were searched by officers before they were reunited with their families.
McDonald said officials weren’t aware of the deaths at Van Rootselaar's house until around 2:45 p.m., when a "young female relative" found the bodies and rushed to a neighbor's to call police.
British Columbia Premier David Eby said police were at the school within two minutes of the report of gunfire.
"That speed and professionalism saved lives today," he said at an evening news conference.
An estimated 25 other people at the location had non-life-threatening injuries, police said. The campus, also described as a high school, was evacuated.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement that his government was working to ensure "the community is fully supported as best we can." He called the violence "horrific" and offered condolences to families who lost loved ones in the attack.
"I join Canadians in grieving with those whose lives have been changed irreversibly today," he said.
Later, Carney ordered that Canadian flags be flown at half-staff on all government buildings for seven days.
In
a statement on X, Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre called Tuesday's attack "a senseless act of violence."
King Charles III, who is Canada’s official head of state, also expressed condolences on X. He said he and his wife, Queen Camilla, were “profoundly shocked and saddened.”
British Columbia legislator Larry Neufeld described Tumbler Ridge as "a small, close-knit town."
"The impact of an event like this is felt by everyone," he said in a statement.
Eby said the day's events won't fade from memory quickly. "This is something that will reverberate for years to come," he said at Tuesday night's news conference.
Hockey legend and four-time Olympic gold medalist Hayley Wickenheiser said Tumbler Ridge co-hosted boot camp for a group of Team Canada's Olympic athletes in 2010.
"It's a beautiful quaint town," she
said on X. "My heart hurts for the families of those lost and this community which always be forever special to me."
Public Safety Minister Nina Krieger said at the news conference that trauma-informed counselors were being dispatched to the region to help people cope with the attack, which she characterized as one of the deadliest in British Columbia history.
The municipality's public school district said that instruction at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and Tumbler Ridge Elementary School was canceled through the end of the week and that mental support for students would be made available.
