A 15-year-old girl was formally charged Wednesday in youth court for conspiracy to murder and uttering threats in Bridgewater, N.S., around 100 kilometres southwest of Halifax.The Canadian Press/The Canadian Press
Two teens who were allegedly co-ordinating attacks on their respective high schools in Nova Scotia and Manitoba began discussing their plans online just 10 days after the mass school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., that killed eight, police say.
The teens, aged 15 and 14, are alleged to have been planning to kill students at Park View Education Centre, a high school in the Nova Scotia town of Bridgewater, and Rivers Collegiate, a small school with Grades 7 through 12 in the rural Manitoba municipality of Riverdale.
On Monday morning, Manitoba RCMP stopped a school bus in Riverdale, about 245 kilometres west of Winnipeg, and arrested a 14-year-old boy, charging him with uttering threats. Police seized the teen’s phone and electronic devices, as well as two firearms owned by a relative during a search at properties associated with him. RCMP declined to describe the weapons.
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On Wednesday, a 15-year-old girl was formally charged in youth court for conspiracy to murder and uttering threats in Bridgewater, around 100 kilometres southwest of Halifax. Bridgewater police searched a home and said they seized handwritten plans, imitation weapons, a roughly made pipe bomb and assault rifle, clothing with hate symbols, a cellphone, and a laptop.
Bridgewater Police Service Deputy Chief Danny MacPhee said the seized items included names of other mass shooters involved in attacks in Norway and the United States.
“We are still in a very infant stage of this investigation. The timing is concerning, no doubt, being a Canadian,” he told The Globe and Mail in response to questions about the teens’ arrests being so soon after last month’s shooting in British Columbia.
“That’s part of the reason we’re so happy we were able to dig into the investigation as quick as we were and get at it at the preventative stage,” he said.
On Feb. 10, Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, killed her mother and 11-year-old half-brother at home before going to her former B.C. high school, where she shot dead an educational assistant and five students, then turned a gun on herself. The Tumbler Ridge shooting, one of the worst in Canadian history, has led to widespread calls for children under 16 to be banned from using artificial-intelligence tools and social media and for RCMP to release information about the weapons used.
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The family of one of the surviving victims has since filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming its ChatGPT chatbot helped incite the shooting. The civil claim argues that the tech company had specific knowledge of the shooter’s violent intentions, but did not warn relevant law enforcement agencies.
Alleged to have taken place between Feb. 20 and March 14, the Nova Scotia and Manitoba teens’ online conversations were intercepted by the FBI and Interpol, who then alerted local authorities, according to court documents and police. Interpol flagged the threat to local police on March 13, describing it as “not imminent.” The teens had been discussing their desire to mount the violent attacks at their schools, police said, though declined to describe their alleged motive.
In this case, OpenAI has not reported interactions between the accused and ChatGPT, Deputy Chief MacPhee said. “It will be very interesting once we get into the devices and what we see because that opens a whole spiral,” he said, referring to how the teens interacted online.
Superintendent Lee Fortin, Manitoba RCMP’s West District Commander, said he understands the profound effect the case will have on the community in Riverdale.
“As we continue to see a rise in these types of threats, we need everyone to continue reporting anything suspicious or concerning to police – your information can make a critical difference,” he said in a statement Wednesday.
Authorities in Manitoba declined to say whether the accused has appeared in court. The Bridgewater teen will remain in custody in Nova Scotia until a bail hearing on March 23. Neither of the teens can be named because of publication bans under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
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The South Shore Regional Centre for Education, the administrative body for Park View in Nova Scotia, said in an e-mailed statement that additional support will be available for students next week when they return to school in the local hub of about 8,800 after March break.
Rivers Collegiate, governed by the Rolling River School Division, is located in the large rural area surrounding Brandon, Manitoba’s second-most populated city. Parents in Riverdale, a town in the area of about 2,200, were informed by the division on Tuesday about Monday’s arrest of a local student.
Rolling River superintendent Jason Cline said the school is working with divisional administration and clinical services to ensure supports are in place for both students and staff. His department, he said in an e-mail, is working with the RCMP on a risk assessment related to online threats and officers have been present on school premises.
Both the Nova Scotia and Manitoba school divisions said they could not provide further information as the matter is before the courts.
Renée Favron, whose son attends elementary school in Riverdale, said she was worried when she saw her division’s “vague notification” because buses are shared amongst students in primary and secondary schools in the area.
“I’m really glad that this situation was handled well and that we’re safe,” Ms. Favron said in an interview. “After what happened in Tumbler Ridge, even the thought of something like this happening has become so incredibly concerning for us as parents. The what-ifs are scary because what happened in B.C. could’ve also happened here in our small farming community.”