Suspect in Canada shooting is identified as an 18-year-old with history
of police visits to her home
[February 12, 2026]
By JIM MORRIS and ROB GILLIES
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — The suspect in a school shooting in
Canada was an 18-year-old who had a history of police visits to her home
to check on her mental health, authorities said Wednesday, a day after
the attack that killed eight people in a remote part of British
Columbia.
Police said Jesse Van Rootselaar was found dead from an apparent
self-inflicted wound following the assault on a school in the small
mountain community of Tumbler Ridge.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said
Van Rootselaar first killed her mother and stepbrother at the family
home before attacking the nearby school. She had a history of mental
health contacts with police, he said.
The motive was unclear.
Police initially said nine people were killed Tuesday, but McDonald
clarified Wednesday that there were eight fatalities. McDonald said the
discrepancy arose from a victim who was airlifted to a medical center.
Authorities mistakenly thought that person had died.
More than 25 people were wounded.
The town is near the provincial border with Alberta
The town of 2,700 people in the Canadian Rockies is more than 1,000
kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Vancouver, near the provincial
border with Alberta.
Police said the victims included a 39-year-old teacher and five
students, ages 12 to 13.
The killings at the home occurred first, McDonald said. A young family
member at the home went to a neighbor, who called police. The bodies of
the suspect's mother, who was also 39, and her 11-year-old stepbrother
were found at the home.
At the school, one victim was found in a stairwell and the rest were
found in the library, McDonald believed. The suspect was not related to
any of the victims at the school, he said.
“There is no information at this point that anyone was specifically
targeted," McDonald said.
Police recovered a long gun and a modified handgun. McDonald said
officers arrived at the school two minutes after the initial call. When
they arrived, shots were fired in their direction.
“Parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers in Tumbler Ridge will wake up
without someone they love. The nation mourns with you, and Canada stands
by you,” an emotional Prime Minister Mark Carney said as he arrived in
Parliament.
Deadliest rampage since 2020
The attack was Canada’s deadliest rampage since 2020, when a gunman in
Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead.
Carney said flags at government buildings will be flown at half-staff
for seven days and added: “We will get through this."
Shelley Quist said her neighbor across the street lost her 12-year-old.
“We heard his mom. She was in the street crying. She wanted her son’s
body,” Quist said.
Quist said her 17-year-old son, Darian, was on lockdown in the school
for more than two hours. The provincial government website lists Tumbler
Ridge Secondary School as having 175 students in grades 7 to 12.
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Tumbler RIdge Secondary School is shown in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. on
Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (Jesse Boily/The Canadian Press via AP)
“The grade sevens and eights, I think, were upstairs in the library,
and that’s where the shooter went,” she said. Her son was in the
library just 15 minutes prior to the attack.
Quist was working at the hospital down the street when the shooting
started.
“I was about to go run down to the school, but my coworker held me
back. And then I was able to get Darian on the phone to know he was
OK,” she said.
Darian Quist said he knew the attack was real when the principal
came down the halls and ordered doors to be closed. He said fellow
students texted him pictures of blood while he remained locked down
in a classroom.
“We used the desk to block the doors,” he said.
School shootings are rare in Canada, which has strict gun-control
laws. The government has responded to previous mass shootings with
gun-control measures, including a recently broadened ban on all guns
it considers assault weapons.
A video showed students walking out with their hands raised as
police vehicles surrounded the building and a helicopter circled
overhead.
A makeshift memorial of flowers and stuffed toys began to grow at
the edge of the school grounds. Residents met nearby to comfort each
other at the local community center.
Community is a ‘big family’
Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka said it was “devastating” to
learn how many had died in the community, which he called a “big
family.”
“I broke down,” Krakowka said. “I have lived here for 18 years. I
probably know every one of the victims.”
The Rev. George Rowe of Tumbler Ridge Fellowship Baptist Church once
taught at the high school, and his three children graduated from
there.
“To walk through the corridors of that school will never be the same
again,” he said.
The school district said the high school and elementary school will
be closed for the rest of the week.
Carney’s office said he called off a planned trip to Europe for the
Munich Security Conference.
British Columbia Premier David Eby said the full extent of what
happened won’t sink in for some time.
“I can tell you this is an incredibly strong community. Everybody is
worried about somebody else,” Eby said outside the townhall.
___
Gillies reported from Toronto.
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