Canada police identify shooting suspect as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar 

The suspect in a school mass shooting in Canada that killed eight people was an 18-year-old with a history of contact with police over her mental health, police have said.

Canadian police identified the suspect on Wednesday as Jesse Van Rootselaar, saying she had died from a self-inflicted wound after carrying out the attack in the remote mountain community of Tumbler Ridge in British Columbia province.

It was Canada’s deadliest mass killing since 2020, when an armed man killed 13 people in Nova Scotia and set fires that caused nine more deaths.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said Van Rootselaar had killed her 39-year-old mother and an 11-year-old stepbrother before the attack on her former school nearby.

The victims included a 39-year-old teacher and five students – three girls and two boys, aged 12 to 13 – while more than 25 were wounded, two of them severely, police said.

RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald told a news conference that Van Rootselaar’s mental health issues had seen her apprehended under the provincial Mental Health Act for an assessment on more than one occasion.

“Police had attended that [family] residence on multiple occasions over the past several years, ⁠dealing with concerns of mental health with respect to our suspect,” he said.

He said Van Rootselaar was born male, but began identifying as a female six years ago. She had dropped out of school ⁠four years ago, police said.

The motive for the attack remains unclear, with McDonald saying it was “too early” to speculate on the shooter’s motivations.

Shooter acted alone

McDonald said police believed Van Rootselaar acted alone, and police had no information to suggest anyone had been specifically targeted at the school.

Police officers had arrived at the scene two minutes after receiving a call alerting them to the attack, officials said.

They had first been notified after the killings at Van Rootselaar’s home, when a young family member at the house went to a neighbour, who called the police.

The responding officers had encountered gunfire in their direction before discovering Van Rootselaar dead from an apparent self-inflicted wound. Police recovered a long gun and a modified handgun.

Van Rootselaar previously had a firearms licence, but it expired in 2024, and she had no weapons registered to her, police said.

They said weapons had been seized from the suspect’s home some years ago, but subsequently returned after the lawful owner petitioned to get them back, the AFP news agency reported.

Families mourn

On social media, family members of the victims posted messages mourning their loved ones, the Reuters news agency reported.

One man, Abel Mwansa, posted on Facebook that his 12-year-old son, also named ⁠Abel, had been killed, while a woman, Shanon Dycke, said her 12-year-old niece, Kylie May Smith, was among the ⁠victims.

Another woman, Cia Edmonds, wrote on the social media platform that her 12-year-old daughter Maya was fighting for her life in hospital after being wounded in the head and neck.

School shootings rare

School shootings are rare in Canada, which has strict gun-control laws, and the attack in the small community of Tumbler Ridge, population 2,700, has sent shock waves throughout the country.

Darryl Krakowka, the mayor of the town in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, became emotional on Wednesday as he called on the close-knit community, which he described as “one big family”, to come together amid the tragedy.