The Canadian Police identified this Wednesday night Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, as the alleged perpetrator of the attack at a school in western Canada this Tuesday.
The deputy director of the Canadian Mounted Police in the province of British Columbia, Dwayne McDonald, also reduced the number of deaths, which had initially been established at ten, to nine, including the perpetrator of the massacre, who, according to investigators, took her own life. Another 27 people were injured in the attack, two of them extremely seriously, although the Police also said that in some cases the injuries were caused directly by the perpetrator of the shooting.
Among the fatalities are five students from Tumbler Ridge High School, a remote town of about 2,400 inhabitants located in the interior of the province of British Columbia: three girls aged 12 and two boys aged 12 and 13.
Another of the deceased is a 39-year-old school teacher, while the two dead located in a local home are Vanrootselaar’s mother and eleven-year-old stepbrother.
Profile details
McDonald stated in a press conference that Van Rootselaar was a person who was assigned male at birth and that six years ago she began her transition and identified as a woman.
The police official also reported that in the past the Police had had to go to Vanrootselaar’s home for reasons of crime and that the officers had seized firearms.
The police therefore knew Van Rootselaar, but it is not known to what depth. “We have begun the process of reaching out” to the public health system to “understand what interactions may have taken place,” British Columbia Premier David Eby said at a news conference outside Tumbler Ridge City Hall late Wednesday night.
According to McDonald’s story, the Police received the first information about the shooting at 1:20 p.m. local time on Tuesday (nine hours more in mainland Spain), and two minutes later, the agents who responded to the call arrived at the school. “As they approached the school, shots were fired in their direction. Officers entered the school within a few minutes to locate the threat. An individual who was confirmed to be the shooter was found dead with what appear to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds,” he explained.
At the school, officers recovered two firearms: a rifle and a modified handgun. The suspect previously had a valid firearm license, which later expired.
McDonald would not speculate on the possible reasons for Van Rootselaar’s actions but confirmed that the author studied at Tumbler Ridge School until four years ago. “Our investigators remain on scene, actively gathering information to determine the full circumstances of what occurred,” he stated.
Authorities do not believe any other suspects were involved in the shootings.
national mourning
In Ottawa, the Canadian Parliament canceled its sessions after maintaining a minute of silence and after political party leaders expressed their condolences.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney canceled the trip he had planned to start this Wednesday to attend the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
In Parliament, Carney recalled that the Tumbler Ridge massacre is the second most serious in a Canadian school since .
The Montreal massacre sparked a shift in the country’s policies toward restricting firearms, especially those considered high-powered.
