Police visited home of Canada school shooting suspect multiple times over mental health concerns | Canada
Police say they have been called multiple times to the home of the teenage suspect behind one of Canada’s deadliest school shootings after concerns about mental health issues and guns grew.
Six people, including a teacher and five children, were killed in a school shooting in the western Canadian town of Tumbler Ridge on Tuesday. Approximately 25 people were also injured, two of whom are in critical but stable condition.
Authorities said the suspect’s mother and stepbrother were also found dead in the family home, while the suspected attacker was found at school with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police later identified the suspect as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar.
The country’s prime minister, Mark Carney, said he would visit the small town of Tumbler Ridge, home to about 2,400 people, on Friday.
Police said the motive for the attack remained unclear and the investigation was still in its early stages. Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) deputy commissioner Dwayne McDonald told reporters on Wednesday that the family was known to authorities.
“Police have been to this home multiple times over the last few years regarding concerns regarding our suspect’s mental health,” McDonald said. He added that the suspect was captured on different occasions under the country’s mental health law for evaluation and follow-up purposes.
McDonald also said at least one of the interactions with police involved weapons. “The police went to that house about a few years ago where firearms were seized under the criminal code,” he said. “At a later time, the legal owner of these firearms petitioned for the return of these firearms and they were returned.”
It was stated that the suspect had a firearm license that expired in 2024 and that there was no firearm registered in his name.
As people across Canada were horrified by the attack, questions were raised about why firearms were returned to a home where police had been called to deal with mental health issues.
“I have a lot of questions,” British Columbia Premier David Eby told reporters Wednesday. “I know the people of Tumbler Ridge have a lot of questions.”
Former RCMP officer Sherry Benson-Podolchuk He told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation(CBC) says for policing to proceed differently, Canada should change its laws to allow police officers to confiscate firearms during mental health checks.
While Canada has relatively high levels of gun ownership, it has much stricter laws than the United States, including a ban on assault-style firearms and a freeze on handgun sales.
Among the victims was Abel Mwansa Jr. There was also. local media reports. “I can’t stand this pain,” his mother, Bwalya Chisanga, wrote on Facebook. “My son went to school around 8.20 in the morning. The last thing he said to me was: ‘Tell my father to come to church and pick me up when he gets back from work.'”
His father, Abel Mwansa, described him as a child with scientific intelligence, a bright future, and who loved to do experiments. “If I had the power to give life, I would bring you back to life along with those who were killed along with you,” he wrote on Facebook. “But my son, my power is limited and it is very painful to see your child killed at this age.”
The family of 12-year-old Kylie Smith also said she was killed in Tuesday’s shooting. He was “the light of his family,” said his father, Lance Younge. he told CTV News. “He had such a beautiful soul. He loved art and anime. He wanted to go to school in Toronto and we loved it. He did well in high school. He never hurt anyone.”
He urged people to focus on the victims, many of whom died before puberty. “Do you want to put someone’s picture in the news?” he said. “Put in my daughter’s picture.”
Among those killed Tuesday were two people living in a home that police said was connected to the suspect. Police later identified the two people as Van Rootselaar’s 39-year-old mother and her 11-year-old half-brother. CBC identified Van Rootselaar’s mother as Jennifer Strang.
Social media posts showed a close-knit family where birthdays were celebrated and children’s interests were advocated for. Van Rootselaar’s mother contacted the suspect’s now-deleted YouTube channel in 2021, saying the posts were about “hunting, self-reliance, guns, stuff like that.”
Court documents from 2015 were obtained by CBC He said Strang and his children have “lived an almost nomadic life,” traveling across Canada many times in the past five years.
Speaking on Wednesday, police said they had “identified the suspect as they chose to be identified” publicly and on social media. “I can say that Jesse was born a biological male who began transitioning to female about six years ago and identifies as female both socially and publicly,” McDonald said.
Campaigners and gun violence experts after an independent state legislator in British Columbia claimed without evidence that the shooting was related to the suspect’s gender identity warned against Generalizing an entire demographic based on one person’s actions.
The Archives of Gun Violence in the United States said that less than 0.1 percent of mass shootings between 2013 and 2025 were committed by transgender people.
Instead, research shows that transgender people more than four times They are more likely than cisgender people to be victims of crimes, including sexual and aggravated assault.
