Police identify suspect in mass shooting in Canada

By MATINA STEVIS-GRIDNEFF and VJOSA ISAI

Canadian authorities on Wednesday identified the suspect in a mass shooting in a remote community in British Columbia as an 18-year-old who killed her mother and stepbrother before fatally shooting several others at a local school.

Dwayne McDonald, a deputy commissioner at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, said most of the victims were 12- or 13-year-old students killed in their school library. In all, he said, the shooter killed nine people, including herself; they had earlier given a mistaken death toll of 10.

McDonald said the suspect, Jesse Van Rootselaar, was biologically born male and began transitioning to female six years ago. He added that police would continue identifying her as a female. He said authorities were not yet able to say why the suspect had carried out the killing spree, one of the worst in Canadian history.

Van Rootselaar and her family were known to authorities, McDonald said, and police had last visited the home in the spring for mental health issues that included self harm.

“Police had attended that residence on a number of occasions over the last several years dealing with concerns of mental health with our suspect,” McDonald said, referring to the home where the suspect’s mother and stepbrother were found dead. On one of those occasions, he said, “firearms were seized.”

He added that the police, who arrived at the school while the suspect was still shooting, had recovered a long gun and a modified handgun from the scene.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Tuesday afternoon that nine bodies had been recovered: those of six victims and the suspected shooter at the local secondary school, and two others at the private residence. In addition, officials said, at least 25 people were wounded.

“This morning, families in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, woke to a different world,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday, speaking in Parliament. “Parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters began this day as their first day on earth without someone they loved dearly.”

Switching to French, Carney, who teared up earlier speaking to reporters, said, “parents in Tumbler Ridge sent their children off to school on Tuesday, and some will never be able to hug their children again.”

Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party and of the parliamentary opposition, said: “No parent should ever have to fear that their child will not return home from school. No parent should ever bury their own child.”

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the suspect died of a self-inflicted wound.

The scale of the shooting is devastating for the remote town of just 2,400 people, on the eastern flank of the Rockies, where few people are strangers. Tumbler Ridge boomed and then declined in the last century along with the local coal mining industry, and has been attempting a comeback based on outdoor tourism.

“It’s a town of miners, teachers, construction workers, families who have built their lives there, people who have always shown up for each other,” through recessions, wildfires and other crises, Carney said. “Tumbler Ridge represents the very best of Canada: resilient, compassionate and strong.”

Here’s what else to know:

— Canadian leader: Carney suspended his planned travel to Germany, where he was scheduled to give a speech Friday at the Munich Security Conference, an annual global defense and foreign policy forum. Messages of support and condolences poured in from global leaders.

— Royal reaction: King Charles III, who is the head of state of Canada, issued a statement Wednesday together with his wife, Queen Camilla: “We can only express our deepest possible sympathy to the families who are grieving the unimaginable loss of their loved ones and those awaiting news from hospital,” they said.

— Rare mass shooting: The violence in Tumbler Ridge was the second mass casualty event in British Columbia in the past 12 months but a rare mass shooting for Canada. The deadliest in the country’s history took place in Nova Scotia, in 2020, when a gunman killed 22 other people in multiple locations, then killed himself.