Tragedy struck the small northeastern community of Tumbler Ridge, B.C., on Tuesday, when eight people were killed in a mass shooting — and the suspect found dead — according to police.
Speaking from Surrey, about 670 kilometres southwest of Tumbler Ridge, on Wednesday, RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald confirmed the identity of the suspect, who was found dead inside the local high school, as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar.
McDonald said two people were killed at a home on Fellers Avenue. CBC News has identified one of them as Van Rootselaar’s mother, Jennifer Strang, 39, from Lawn, N.L. The other was Van Rootselaar’s 11-year-old stepbrother, according to police.
Six more people were killed at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, and many more injured.
Among those killed are a 39-year-old female educator, three 12-year-old female students and two male students, one 12 and the other 13.
Two more victims, a 12-year-old girl and 19-year-old woman, were airlifted to hospital, where police said they remain in serious condition. Approximately 25 more individuals sustained physical injuries.
Van Rootselaar dropped out of school four years ago, and was not a student at the time of the shooting, police said.
Dwayne said police are continuing to notify loved ones, and whether their identities are made public will be up to the families.
Tumbler Ridge, home to about 2,400 people, is located about 660 kilometres northeast of Vancouver and just over 500 kilometres west of Edmonton.
Tumbler Ridge pastor George Rowe describes the community as “very closely knit.”
“We all share this tragedy as if it was my family, or my neighbour’s family.”
Town councillor Chris Norbury, whose wife is a teacher at the school and is safe, told CBC News he knows every one of the victims.
“I’ve seen them grow up,” he said. “We sang stories together, we read books together … I saw them everywhere. And knowing that I can’t see them anymore, that we won’t see them anymore, that their family has to live with this incredible loss … is almost unbearable.”
