A screen capture from a video shows students exiting the Tumbler Ridge school after a deadly shooting in the B.C. small town on Tuesday.Jordon Kosik/The Associated Press
The victims of Tuesday’s mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge were mostly tweens, some huddled in their school library before an older teenager opened fire, killing five of them.
An educator was also killed, as were the shooter’s mother and younger stepbrother, and two victims with significant injuries were evacuated by air ambulance. About 25 were assessed for injuries. But the tragedy, one of Canada’s deadliest mass shootings, has enveloped everyone in the tiny community in northeastern British Columbia.
Latest updates on the Tumbler Ridge school shooting, the suspect and victims
Mourners gather at a memorial for the victims of the mass school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.Jesse Winter/The Globe and Mail
On Wednesday night, several hundred people gathered in Tumbler Ridge for a vigil to mourn those who had died. People left flowers and held candles around a single spruce tree, located no more than 100 steps from the school where tragedy had struck.
Members of the community came to a microphone one after another, in no particular order, sharing whatever was on their mind – fears, hopes, thank-yous to first responders and teachers. In the crowd, people wiped away tears, some breaking into whimpers and cries.
“Canada is crying with you tonight,” said Bob Zimmer, the MP for Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies, which includes the town.
As the mining town grapples with its new reality, a chronology of the attack shared by police on Wednesday, paired with interviews and firsthand accounts, helped shed new light on how events unfolded. Together, they depict chaos and bravery inside the school – panicked children hiding in various corners of the building as alarms blared, a teacher fuelled by adrenaline hatching an escape plan for students.
They also reveal a pattern of interventions in the shooter’s mental health, which failed to prevent the tragedy.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Mounties identified the shooter as Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, a Tumbler Ridge resident who four years earlier had dropped out of the high school where the attack occurred. Ms. Van Rootselaar was born a biological male and transitioned to female about six years ago, said Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, B.C. RCMP Commanding Officer.
Police had visited the shooter’s home “on multiple occasions over the past several years” because of mental health concerns, and she was apprehended under the Mental Health Act several times. As well, police had in the past seized firearms from the family home under the Criminal Code, the deputy commissioner said.
Police outside Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Wednesday.Jesse Boily/The Canadian Press
Police also revised the death toll to nine on Wednesday, including the suspect, correcting information that was provided Tuesday.
The deceased students are three 12-year-old girls and two boys, ages 12 and 13, police said Wednesday. The deceased educator was a 39-year-old woman. Police have not yet released the identities of victims; some have surfaced through friends, family members and acquaintances on social media and have subsequently been confirmed by The Globe.
Deputy Commissioner McDonald acknowledged that there are many questions about the shooter’s motive, and relationship to victims, that are still being investigated and police can’t yet answer.
“This is a deeply distressing incident where nine individuals have senselessly lost their lives,” he said. “Our thoughts are with the families, the loved ones, the first responders in the greater Tumbler Ridge community and all those affected by this tragic incident.”
A group of parents gather outside Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Tuesday as RCMP investigate inside.Trent Ernst/Supplied
Police received a report of an active shooter at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School at 2:20 p.m. MT Tuesday. As an alarm blared, 13-year-old Mya LaRocque took shelter in a closet with about 16 of her classmates.
“I was just scared,” Mya said. “I didn’t really know what was happening.”
As she crouched in the tight space, she heard gunshots ring out inside the school.
Meanwhile, mechanical shop teacher Jarbas Noronha sprang into fight-or-flight mode, taking a quick head count of his Grade 11 and 12 students before barricading his classroom door with the shop’s heavy metal benches.
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If it came to it, the benches would at least buy the group enough time to escape through the room’s back doors, he figured.
“My goal was to try and keep all 15 students calm,” Mr. Noronha said. “I did not want them to panic, because I wanted them to act if I needed them to.”
Police arrived within two minutes and rounds were fired at the officers as they approached, Deputy Commissioner McDonald said.
“Police did not return fire, to the best of my knowledge,” he told reporters Wednesday.
One victim was found dead in the school stairwell, others in the library. The shooter had died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot, police said. Two firearms – a long gun and a modified handgun – were recovered by responding officers.
Once it was safe, police ushered more than 100 students and faculty out of the school and to a nearby community centre. Mya and her classmates emerged from the closet and were directed to leave the school with their hands in the air as they were escorted outside, so police could ensure there were no other weapons, her grandparents said.
She left the school without her shoes, feeling the cold ground beneath her feet until she reached the community centre.
“We found our baby,” said Mya’s grandmother, Linda LaRocque. “I didn’t want to let go of her.”
Holding back tears on Wednesday evening, Mya said she planned to go to a vigil that night to pay respects to the other victims, whom she knew.
She doesn’t want to ever return to the school.
‘It’s just horrible’: Tumbler Ridge reeling after deadly school shooting
At 2:47 p.m. MT on Tuesday, about half an hour after police were called to the school, police were called to a private residence, where they found the shooter’s 39-year-old mother and 11-year-old stepbrother dead. The incident at the home is believed to have occurred first, police said.
The last interaction police had with the shooter was in the spring of 2025, related to her mental health, Deputy Commissioner McDonald said.
People close to the shooter told The Globe that she had struggled with her mental health. Three years earlier, she had set fire to a bed inside her family’s home and was taken to Prince George for psychiatric treatment.
Police do not have any information to date that anyone at the school was specifically targeted. Ms. Van Rootselaar had a gun licence that expired in 2024 and did not have any firearms registered to her, police said.
The Associated Press
Maya Gebala, 12, is one of two victims who sustained significant injuries and were transported to hospital via air ambulance for care. Her mother, Cia Edmonds, posted Tuesday on Facebook that the girl is fighting for her life after suffering gunshot wounds to the head and neck.
“This doesn’t even feel real,” Ms. Edmonds wrote.
On Wednesday, Ms. Edmonds posted an update on her daughter’s condition, saying she’d been warned “that the damage to her brain was too much for her to endure, and she wouldn’t make the night.”
She posted a photo of Maya in her Vancouver hospital bed, her eyes closed and her head heavily bandaged.
“I can feel her in my heart. I can feel her saying it’s going to be OK,” Ms. Edmonds wrote. “Our baby needs a miracle.”
A family is mourning their 12-year-old daughter, Kylie Smith, who was killed in the Tumbler Ridge school shooting on Tuesday. Kylie's father Lance Younge said he recalled his final moment with her as he saw her off to school with her brother Ethan, unaware it was the last time he would see her alive.
Reuters
Earlier Wednesday, bright yellow police tape, orange barriers and police vehicles blocked entry to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, which is closed for the remainder of the week. Flags in the district were lowered to half-mast. Counsellors were being brought in to support a community in mourning.
Mayor Darryl Krakowka said the community functioned as one big family, and that he broke down when he first heard the death toll.
“I have lived here for 18 years,” he said. “I probably know every one of the victims.”
Larry Neufeld, the MLA for Peace River South, flew in to visit community members Wednesday.
“There’s not a word in the English language that is strong enough to describe the level of devastation,” he said.
Mr. Neufeld said every first responder involved would have known the victims. “This is a very tight-knit community. And if your family was not directly affected by this tragedy, there’s a less than one degree separation between you and someone directly affected.”
When he arrived in Tumbler Ridge, he checked in at the medical clinic and found the staff there have been relieved by replacement workers so that they themselves can get counselling support.
Terry MacLeod describes the district as the type of community where you don’t need to lock your front door, where kids play together in the street under the summer sun and where neighbours quickly become friends.
“It just goes to show something like this can bring all of that into question,” said Mr. MacLeod, who has lived in the town part-time over the past 3½ years while working at the nearby Conuma coal mine. He said one of his colleagues lost their daughter in the mass shooting, adding everyone knows someone who has been directly affected.
He believes the community will heal in time but only if people come together, instead of letting the tragedy rip them apart. The key to healing, Mr. MacLeod said, is to focus on how to strengthen community connections and supports.
“This was a horrific, unthinkable event and someone didn’t get the help they needed,” Mr. MacLeod said. “I would hope that it opens everyone’s eyes and minds a little bit on how we need to support one another.”
With reports from Tom Cardoso, Maura Forrest and Nathan VanderKlippe