An 18-year-old girl carried out a mass shooting at a Canadian school. Before that, she killed her mother and brother

Canadian police have named Jesse Van Rootselaar, an 18-year-old girl with mental health issues who was a student at the school but dropped out four years ago, as the suspect in the February 10 mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge High School.

Reuters writes about this.

Jesse Van Rootselaar committed suicide after being shot. British Columbia Police Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said Van Rootselaar was born a boy but began identifying as a woman six years ago. He repeatedly detained her for evaluation under the provinceʼs Mental Health Act.

Van Rootselaar killed nine people at the school, up from the previous estimate of 10. She first killed her 39-year-old mother and 11-year-old half-brother in the family home. She then went to the school, where she shot and killed a 39-year-old teacher, before attacking students. Police recovered a long-barreled shotgun and a modified pistol. Dozens of people were injured, and two of the victims remain in hospital with serious injuries.

Unlike the United States, school shootings are almost non-existent in Canada, and politicians initially found it difficult to maintain composure.

“We will get through this. We will learn from this,” a visibly upset Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters.

He postponed a trip to Europe for the Munich Security Conference and ordered flags on all government buildings to fly at half-mast for the next seven days.

According to authorities, police officers who arrived on the scene two minutes after the initial call encountered active fire in their direction before finding the attacker dead.

• In April 2020, a 51-year-old man dressed in a police uniform and driving a fake police car shot and killed 22 people during a 13-hour rampage in the province of Nova Scotia. He was shot dead by police at a gas station about 90 kilometers from the scene of the first killings.
• In Canadaʼs worst school shooting, which occurred in December 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal (Quebec), a gunman killed 14 female students and wounded 13 before committing suicide.

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