Police Identify Suspect In Canada School Shooting As Teen Girl

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Police on Wednesday identified the suspect in a Canadian school shooting as an 18-year-old who had been called to his home for a mental health call and was found dead following the attack that left nine people dead in a remote part of British Columbia.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said Jesse Van Rootselaar had mental health issues with police, and the suspect’s mother and half-brother were also found dead in a home near the school.

The reason remained unclear.

More than 25 people were injured in Tuesday’s attack in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, including two people with life-threatening injuries who were airlifted for medical care, police said.

The village of 2,700 people in the Canadian Rockies is located more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Vancouver, near the provincial border. Alberta.

“Parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers in Tumbler Ridge will wake up without someone they love. The nation mourns with you, and Canada is with you,” an emotional Prime Minister Mark Carney said upon his arrival in Parliament.

The attack was the deadliest attack by a gunman in Canada since 2020. Nova Scotia kills 13 people and started fires that killed nine more people.

Carney stated that the flags in government buildings will be lowered to half-mast for 7 days and said, “We will overcome this.”

Shelley Quist said her neighbor across the street lost her 12-year-old child. “We heard his mother’s voice. She was crying on the street. She wanted her son’s body,” Quist said.

Quist said her 17-year-old son, Darian, was in isolation at the school for more than two hours. The state government website lists Tumbler Ridge Middle School as having 175 students in grades 7 through 12.

“I think the seventh and eighth graders were upstairs in the library and that’s where the shooter went,” he said. His son was at the library just 15 minutes before the attack.

Quist was working at the hospital down the street when the shooting began.

“I was about to run to school, but my co-worker stopped me. Then I called Darian and found out he was okay,” she said.

School shootings are rare in Canada strict gun control laws. The government has responded to previous mass shootings with gun control measures. recently expanded Banning all weapons considered offensive weapons.

British Columbia Premier David Eby told reporters police arrived at the school within two minutes.

In the video, students can be seen walking out with their hands in the air as police vehicles surround the building and a helicopter circles overhead.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector Ken Floyd said police found six people dead. A seventh person died while being taken to hospital, while two more people were found dead in a home that authorities believe is connected to the attack.

Floyd told reporters that investigators had identified the suspect but would not name him. He said police were investigating the connection between the attacker and the victims.

Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka said it was “devastating” to learn how many people had died in the community he called “one big family.”

“I was devastated,” Krakowka said. “I’ve lived here for 18 years. I probably know all the victims.”

The Rev. George Rowe of Tumbler Ridge Fellowship Baptist Church went to the recreation center where the victims’ families were waiting for more information.

“It was not a pleasant sight. Families are still waiting to find out if it was their child who died, and as per protocol and procedure, the investigation team is being very careful in releasing names,” Rowe said in a statement on Tuesday.

Rowe once taught high school, and all three of his children graduated from there.

“Walking the halls of that school will never be the same again,” he said.

The school district said the high school and elementary school will be closed for the rest of the week.

Carney’s office said he canceled a planned trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Munich, Germany. He was preparing to announce his long-awaited defense industrial strategy in Halifax on Wednesday before heading to Europe for the Munich Security Conference.

Eby said he spoke to the prime minister on Tuesday about the “unimaginable tragedy.”

“I know this makes us hold our kids a little tighter tonight,” he said. “I’m asking the people of British Columbia to look out for the people of Tumbler Ridge tonight.”

Gillies reported from Toronto.