A shooting at a school in remote northern British Columbia killed seven people and left more than 25 wounded, Canadian authorities said Tuesday, after police also found two people dead at a nearby home and the suspect was found dead as well.
RCMP Superintendent Ken Floyd said investigators found six people dead at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and that a seventh person died while being transported to hospital. He said the suspect was also found dead, with Floyd describing the death as apparently from a self-inflicted injury, and he said investigators had identified the suspect as female but would not release a name. Floyd said the motive remained unclear and that police were still investigating the connection between the shooter and the victims.
Police said the school shooting was the start of what unfolded in Tumbler Ridge, a community of about 2,700 people in the Canadian Rockies more than 1,000 kilometers (about 600 miles) northeast of Vancouver. The town lies near the provincial border with Alberta, and the provincial government website lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as having about 175 students from grades 7 to 12.
British Columbia Premier David Eby told reporters that police officers reached the school within two minutes. A video circulated during the response showed students walking out with their hands raised as police vehicles surrounded the building and a helicopter circled overhead.
Separate from the deaths at the school, authorities said two more victims were found dead at a residence they believed was connected to the attack. Local officials said the scale of the loss hit the town, with Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka calling it “devastating” and describing the fatalities as coming from a “big family.”
“I broke down,” Krakowka said. “I have lived here for 18 years. I probably know every one of the victims.”
The Rev. George Rowe of the Tumbler Ridge Fellowship Baptist Church said he went to the recreation center where victims’ families were waiting for information. Rowe said families were still waiting to learn whether it was their child who was deceased and that the investigating team was careful about releasing names because of “protocol and procedure.” He said counselors and other pastors were there so families were not alone.
Rowe, who previously taught at the high school and whose three children graduated from it, said, “To walk through the corridors of that school will never be the same again.”
The school district said Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and Tumbler Ridge Elementary School would be closed for the rest of the week. Police said the wider death toll included the suspect, bringing the total number of deaths to 10.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was “devastated” in a social media post. “I join Canadians in grieving with those whose lives have been changed irreversibly today, and in gratitude for the courage and selflessness of the first responders who risked their lives to protect their fellow citizens,” Carney wrote. His office said he was suspending a planned trip to Halifax and Munich, where he had been set to announce a long-awaited defense industrial strategy before attending the Munich Security Conference, and that he had spoken with Eby about the “unimaginable tragedy.”
Eby said it was “causing us all to hug our kids a little bit tighter tonight” and asked people in British Columbia to “look after the people of Tumbler Ridge tonight.” Canadian government officials have previously responded to mass shootings by pursuing gun control measures, including recently broadening a ban on guns the government considers assault weapons. Authorities said Tuesday’s shootings were Canada’s deadliest mass attack since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead.