Lives Lost in the Tumbler Ridge Mass Shooting

An attack at a secondary school and a private home in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, left six people and the shooter dead and the remote community shaken. Authorities identified the shooter as Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, who used two firearms at the school after killing her mother and 11-year-old stepbrother at their home.

Police said Van Rootselaar had a history of mental illness, had been visited by authorities previously, had dropped out of school about four years ago and had begun transitioning from male to female around that time. One of the victims was 12-year-old Kylie Smith, who loved art and dreamed of attending university in Toronto.

She left for school with her brother Ethan, who later crouched in a utility closet and messaged their parents; Kylie did not return. Her father, Lance Young, said it took hours before he learned she had been killed.

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