Ottawa: The suspect in a deadly school shooting in western Canada was an 18-year-old with mental health issues who killed her mother and step-brother before attacking her former school, police said, but investigators did not offer a motive for one of the worst mass slaughters in the country’s history.

The killer, who police named as Jesse Van Rootselaar, died by suicide after the shooting in Tumbler Ridge, a remote community in the Pacific province of British Columbia. Police also revised the death toll down to nine from the initially reported 10, including Van Rootselaar. Two severely injured victims remain in hospital.

Police at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Wednesday.
Police at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Wednesday.AP
“We have a history of police attendance at the family residence. Some of those calls are related to mental health issues,” Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, commander of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, told a press conference on Wednesday (Ottawa time).

McDonald said Van Rootselaar, a biological male who began to identify as female six years ago, had first killed her mother, Jennifer Strang, 39, and her 11-year-old step-brother at the family home.

Van Rootselaar then went to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and shot a 39-year-old female teacher as well as three 12-year-old female students and two male students, one aged 12 and one aged 13. One victim was found in a stairwell, and the rest were found in the school library, McDonald said.

“We do believe the suspect acted alone … it would be too early to speculate on motive,” he told a press conference.

McDonald said Van Rootselaar was not a current student at the school, having dropped out about four years ago.

Police had seized a number of legally held weapons from the family home on previous visits, McDonald said, but the owner successfully petitioned for them to be returned.

Two firearms – a long gun and a modified handgun – were recovered from the scene of the shooting. Van Rootselaar previously had a firearms licence, but it expired in 2024, McDonald said.

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Canadians between the ages of 12 and 17 can obtain a minor’s firearms licence after taking a firearms safety course and passing tests.

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Details of some of the victims began to slowly emerge on Thursday AEDT.

Posting on Facebook, Abel Mwansa said his 12-year-old son, also named Abel, had died in the shooting.

“Our son went to school this morning and it happened that someone came to school with a GUN went to my kids classroom shot some kids and my son was killed too just like that”, Mwansa wrote.

‘Pray for Tumbler Ridge’

Another woman, Shanon Dycke, said her 12-year-old niece, Kylie May Smith, was among the victims.

“Pray for the other families who have lost their child, or are waiting to hear news,” she wrote on Facebook. “Just pray for Tumbler Ridge.”

The London Telegraph identified one of the critically injured victims as 12-year-old Maya Gebala, who was shot by Van Rootselaar in the head and neck.

Cia Edmonds, her mother, said the day had started “as any other” and ended with her sitting by her daughter’s bedside in the critical care unit of Vancouver Children’s Hospital.

“She was a lucky one, I suppose,” Edmonds wrote in an online message two hours after the shooting.

Earlier in the day, a visibly upset Prime Minister Mark Carney promised Canadians would get through what he called a “terrible” shooting.

Carney, who has postponed a trip to Europe, said he had ordered flags on all government buildings be flown at half-mast for the next seven days, while British Columbia declared Thursday (Canadian time) as a day of mourning

“We will get through this. We will learn from this,” he told reporters, at one point looking close to tears.

“But right now, it’s a time to come together, as Canadians always do in these situations, these terrible situations, to support each other, to mourn together and to grow together.”

Several prominent world leaders sent messages of condolence. King Charles, Canada’s head of state, said he was “profoundly shocked and saddened” by the deaths.

Students locked down

Shelley Quist said her 17-year-old son, Darian, was on lockdown in the school for more than two hours. The provincial government website lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as having 175 students in grades 7 to 12.

“The grade sevens and eights, I think, were upstairs in the library, and that’s where the shooter went,” she said. Her son was in the library just 15 minutes prior to the attack.

Quist was working at a nearby hospital when the shooting started.

Students leave the school after being locked down for more than two hours.
Students leave the school after being locked down for more than two hours.AP
“I was about to go run down to the school, but my coworker held me back. And then I was able to get Darian on the phone to know he was OK,” she said.

Darian Quist said he knew the attack was real when the principal came down the halls and ordered doors to be closed. He said fellow students texted him pictures of blood while he remained locked down in a classroom.

“We used the desk to block the doors,” he said.

Canada has stricter gun laws than the United States, but the shooting ranks among the deadliest in Canadian history.

In April 2020, a 51-year-old man disguised in a police uniform and driving a fake police car shot and killed 22 people in a 13-hour rampage in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia, before police killed him at a gas station.

In Canada’s worst school shooting, in December 1989, a gunman killed 14 female students and wounded 13 at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, before killing himself.

“There’s not a word in the English language that’s strong enough to describe the level of devastation that this community has experienced,” said Larry Neufeld, a local provincial legislator.

“It’s going to take a significant amount of effort and a significant amount of courage to repair that terror,” he told CBC News.