Nine people, including the shooter, died after a shooting at a high school in western Canada on Tuesday, in one of the country’s deadliest school shootings in recent history. Police revised the death toll down from ten to nine on Wednesday.
Canadian authorities identified the shooter as Jesse Van Rootselaar, an 18-year-vintage, who had a history of mental health issues. Police did not disclose a motive for the attack.
Van Rootselaar died by suicide following the shooting in Tumbler Ridge, a remote community in British Columbia, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). “We do have a history of police attendance at the family residence. Some of those attendances relate to mental health issues,” said Dwayne McDonald, the RCMP’s commanding officer in British Columbia, at a press conference.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, visibly shaken, earlier promised Canadians that the nation would overcome what he called a “terrible” shooting. The attack is among the deadliest in Canadian history.
The shooting unfolded at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, which has approximately 160 students from grades seven through twelve, according to the school’s website. Authorities responded to the scene within two minutes of receiving the initial call, according to Nina Krieger, British Columbia’s Minister of Public Safety.
Six people died inside the school, and two others were found dead in a nearby residence linked to the case, police said. One victim died en route to the hospital. More than 25 people were injured, with at least two in critical condition and transported by helicopter to larger hospitals.
The school will remain closed for the rest of the week and will offer psychological support to students in need, school officials said.
Canada has stricter gun laws than the United States, but Canadians can possess firearms with a license. Since 2020, the government of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced a series of restrictions on the possession of short-barreled guns and military-style weapons, in part responding to a mass shooting in Nova Scotia and the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Tumbler Ridge is a remote municipality with a population of around 2,400 people, located at the base of the Rocky Mountains in northern British Columbia, approximately 717 miles northeast of Vancouver.
The shooting is among the deadliest in Canada’s history. In April 2020, a 51-year-old man disguised as a police officer and driving a fake police car killed 22 people in Nova Scotia over 13 hours before being shot dead by police. The worst school shooting in Canadian history occurred in December 1989, when a gunman killed 14 female students and injured 13 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal before taking his own life.
In response to the shooting, Prime Minister Carney postponed a planned announcement on Wednesday in Halifax regarding a new Defence Industrial Strategy and a subsequent trip to the Munich Security Conference in Germany, a spokesperson said.
“I am devastated by today’s horrific shootings in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. My thoughts and deepest condolences are with the families and friends who have lost loved ones in these terrible acts of violence,” Carney said on X.
Other mass casualty events in Canada include an April 2025 incident in Vancouver, British Columbia, where eleven people died and dozens were injured when a man with a history of mental health issues drove a pickup truck into a Filipino community festival. In September 2022, a series of stabbings left 10 dead and 18 injured across 13 locations in the James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon, Saskatchewan.