Canadian police identify 18-year-old woman as suspect in mass school shooting

The suspect of a deadly school shooting in western Canada was an 18-year-old woman with mental health problems who killed her mother and stepbrother, then targeted her former school, police said Wednesday, although they were unable to state what drove one of Canada’s worst mass killings.

The perpetrator, who has been named as Jesse Van Rootselaar, took his own life following the shootings on Tuesday in Tumbler Ridge, a sparsely populated town of 2,400 people in the Pacific province of British Columbia. The police have brought the casualty count down to nine, including the perpetrator, from the initial 10.

On more than one occasion, Van Rootselaar had been detained under the provincial Mental Health Act for assessment, said Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, commander of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia.

"Police had visited that (family) residence on multiple occasions over the past several years, responding to mental health concerns involving our suspect," McDonald said.

Unlike the United States, school shootings are almost unheard of in Canada, and the federal politicians were initially unable to contain their emotions.

"We will get through this. We will learn from this," a visibly upset Prime Minister Mark Carney said. He also postponed a trip to Europe and ordered flags to be flown at half-mast over all government buildings for the next seven days.

Several hours later, the parliamentarians in the House of Commons paid a moment of silence and listened to a gloomy-tinted Carney say the incident had left their nation in shock and mourning.

"Tumbler Ridge represents the very best of Canada," Carney said.

The mayor of Tumbler Ridge, Darryl Krakowka, speaking to reporters late on Wednesday, said that the community was "one big family." "Lend your ear when someone needs your ear," he said, sometimes growing emotional. "Lend your shoulder when someone needs your shoulder. Give somebody a hug."

According to McDonald, Van Rootselaar, who was born male but identifies as female, first murdered his mother, 39, and stepbrother, aged 11, at their residence.

She then proceeded to the school, where she shot and killed a female teacher aged 39 and three 12-year-old female students, as well as two male students aged 12 and 13. A long gun and a modified handgun were found by the police.

Dozens are injured, and two severely injured victims are fighting for their lives in the hospital. Among those victims is a 12-year-old girl named Maya, who is battling to stay alive as she has sustained gunshot injuries to her head and neck, as revealed in a Facebook post made by the girl’s mother, Cia Edmonds.

At the crime scene, police officials who arrived two minutes after the reporting of the crime to the police found active gunshots, including those targeting their direction, prior to discovering the corpse of Van Rootselaar, who died from a self-inflicted injury.