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Tumbler Ridge, a small mountain community in Canada’s northern British Columbia, marked the aftermath of what authorities described as the country’s deadliest mass shooting in years as families grieved the eight people killed and tried to understand how the attack unfolded. In the days after the violence began Tuesday at an area home and then at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, police and other officials continued to release victim identities and timelines while residents spoke of shock and sustained uncertainty.
Authorities said the alleged shooter, identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, killed her 39-year-old mother, Jennifer Jacobs, and her 11-year-old stepbrother, Emmett Jacobs, at the family’s northern British Columbia home on Tuesday before going to the nearby school. Authorities then said she opened fire, killing five children and an educator before she died by suicide. Authorities said 25 people were also injured in the attack, and that the motive remained unclear.
Among those killed was 12-year-old Kylie Smith. In a statement, Kylie’s family remembered her as “the light in our family,” and said she “loved her family, friends, and going to school.” The family said she was “a talented artist and had dreams of going to art school in the big city of Toronto,” adding, “Rest in paradise, sweet girl, our family will never be the same without you.”
Kylie’s father, Lance Younge, described a frantic effort to learn what happened to his daughter, saying he initially learned details through other families and students rather than from authorities. Younge told CTV News that after about 3 p.m. Tuesday his son, Ethan, texted “I love you,” then later called to say he was hiding in a utility room at his school and did not know where Kylie was. Younge said the family would find out hours later that Kylie was among the dead.
Authorities identified the other victims as Abel Mwansa, Zoey Benoit and Ticaria Lampert, all age 12, as well as 13-year-old Ezekiel Schofield and assistant teacher Shannda Aviugana-Durand, 39. Zoey’s family described her as “resilient, vibrant, smart, caring and the strongest little girl you could meet,” and Peter Schofield, whose grandson was killed, shared his grief in a Facebook post saying: “Everything feels so surreal. The tears just keep flowing.”
As residents continued to process the deaths, community members also pointed to gaps in health care and mental-health support. Trent Ernst, publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines, said he had been “randomly breaking down and weeping at inopportune times,” especially when speaking to people about what was happening, and said he knew Maya Gebala, 12, who was wounded in the head and neck, and Paige Hoekstra, 19, who suffered bullet wounds. Ernst said both were hospitalized in Vancouver.
Ernst said one frustration for the community was limited medical support, particularly mental health services, and said the alleged shooter had a history of police visits to her home to check on her mental health. He said many residents shared the concern that Tumbler Ridge lacks “the level of support for mental health and health services in general,” adding that the town’s clinic and emergency response would have been different depending on the time of day.
Ernst said Tumbler Ridge, with roughly 2,700 residents, is more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Vancouver near the provincial border with Alberta. He said mental health staffing was limited, saying “Right now, there are five mental health nurses in town,” and that residents could go “months, if not years” without anyone in mental-health services. Mayor Darryl Krakowka later urged mourners to support one another, telling them Wednesday night: “It’s OK to cry,” and describing the town as “one big family.”
In addition to the immediate impact of the shooting, officials and residents referenced earlier events involving the alleged shooter. AP reported that Rootselaar and her family led a “nomadic lifestyle” marked by multiple moves between at least three Canadian provinces, citing a 2015 British Columbia court ruling in a dispute involving the shooter’s parents. The court decision described her mother, Jennifer Jacobs, also known as Jennifer Strang, moving with her children between Newfoundland, Grand Cache in Alberta and Powell River, British Columbia, over the previous five years.
The 2015 court ruling said Jacobs engaged in “reprehensible conduct” by failing to give the children’s father enough notice that she was moving back to Newfoundland in August 2015, and said she was ordered to return the children to British Columbia. Police later said they recovered a long gun and a modified handgun at the school that they said Rootselaar used in the attack, and that there was no information that anyone at the school was targeted before officers arrived about two minutes after the initial call.
Dwayne McDonald, deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, said shots were fired in the direction of officers after they arrived. Prime Minister Mark Carney said “Parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers in Tumbler Ridge will wake up without someone they love,” adding, “The nation mourns with you, and Canada stands by you,” and said flags at government buildings would be flown at half-staff for seven days. Carney said he planned to visit Tumbler Ridge on Friday.
Canada has strict gun-control laws and school shootings remain rare, officials said. The AP report said the attack was the country’s deadliest since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead, and that the government has responded to previous mass shootings with gun-control measures including a recently broadened ban on all guns it considers assault weapons.