Canada police identify shooting suspect as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar

12-Feb-2026

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The suspect in a school mass shooting in Canada that killed eight people was an 18-year-old with a history of contact with police over her mental health, police have said.

Canadian police identified the suspect on February 11 as Jesse Van Rootselaar, saying she had died from a self-inflicted wound after carrying out the attack in the remote mountain community of Tumbler Ridge in British Columbia province.

It was Canada’s deadliest mass killing since 2020, when an armed man killed 13 people in Nova Scotia and set fires that caused nine more deaths.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said Van Rootselaar had killed her 39-year-old mother and an 11-year-old stepbrother before the attack on her former school nearby.

The victims included a 39-year-old teacher and five students – three girls and two boys, aged 12 to 13 – while more than 25 were wounded, two of them severely, police said.

RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald told a news conference that Van Rootselaar’s mental health issues had seen her apprehended under the provincial Mental Health Act for an assessment on more than one occasion.