Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia: 10 confirmed dead, 25 injured in mass shooting (2/10/2026)

[MistyWaters]

I’m not sure if this answers part of your question—

After the 2020 killings in Nova Scotia, a psychiatrist said a large part of what the killer did was an act of utter despair.

It took a while for me to accept that as true. They want to end their own life, but need to push themselves to the brink in order to do so. Acting out the thought of killing others pushes them to that point of no return.

The NS killer was killed by an officer, but that was what he wanted, imo.

Interesting, I can sort of understand how that concept can be applied to both cases in the way you’ve explained it. In this case it seems Jesse took her own life as soon as police responded to the school after killing and injuring dozens of people there, the point of no return was reached. Leaves me shudder to even think about but ugg, it does make sense.

 

[Fabled Automatic]

I also dont think the small mining town was a factor in the shooting. But what I meant to say is I think a small town can be a negative factor in the well being of a teenage who doesn’t fall within the mainstream of excelling in team sports and whatever else determines high school popularity.

What future opportunity would there be for a transgender person who dropped out of school at 14 to look optimistically toward a bright future in Tumbler Ridge or any small town for that matter? I’d bet not much of anything, It’s simply a matter of economy of scale. I bet no peer group, no gender-sexuality supportive alliances. It’s often that darkness in isolation which can turn dangerous.

I’m not condoning nor blaming anything for this tragedy, just trying to imagine what on earth went wrong. How can any person intently shoot to kill so many innocent children along with their mother and a stepbrother?
JMO

It shouldn't be a controversial or hushed opinion to point out that small rural mindsets can be extremely damaging to those who don't fit the social normative. Without saying too much, I have family members who were bullied relentlessly up until graduation in our rural town. It's been decades and they still don't go back there. It can be incredibly difficult for some to fit in, especially when they're rejected by small mindedness.

Take the example of the Columbine shooters. They were bullied quite a bit. Obviously killing people for such things is never justified, but it is unfortunately sometimes a consequence. People sometimes respond harshly when they're rejected by their peers and society for years on end.

 

[Muddy K]

At this point, my despair around shootings like this is twofold.

First, all of these increasingly common events are devastating, tragic and pointless. People die for no reason other than a desperate shooter swings a weapon in their direction. After the outcry, grief and inevitable departure of the media, nothing changes. We wait for the next shooting, knowing it will come.

Second, at this point, after so many school shootings, much of the pre-signaling is known, and the hindsight analysis is all too familiar. Broken home. Naive or inattentive parent/s. Previous history of mental health struggles, sometimes including intervention efforts. Interest in and access to guns. Posing with those guns. Abandoning schooling. Spending time online, hanging out in various internet abbatoirs offering IRL images of violence. Chatroom convos, veiled, or not, half cry for help, half bravado. FOMO. Alienation. Searching for "tribe" on Discord, WatchPeopleDie, ad nauseum.

The core signals are always there, IMO, with variations from shooter to shooter, but only variations.

(Like Adam Lanza, this shooter shot family first. In both cases, maybe it was to spare family members from the suffering and notoriety of the shooters' coming actions; I don't know. Maybe it was to avoid having to face them in the aftermath. Maybe it was just anger, resentment, hatred. Unhappiness.)

IMO, patterns of conduct around these shooters are now agonizingly obvious. Why can't we see them for what they are before people are shot? Why can't we intervene, even help them?

 

[outback]

True, we do not know whether there was cooperation, or continued efforts to prevent a relationship between the shooter and <modsnip: misgendering> father. I have not looked for additional court documents.

If there are 5 children (per links upthread), and the shooter is the oldest, then all five are close in age. The step-brother who was killed was born in 2015, at the same time that mother took the children to the Atlantic provinces (same time as father's affidavit for access to his children)

Based on RCMP statements, there were mental health problems, and there was no history of school-based bullying. Based on that, my impression was that small town and limited population was not a factor in the shooting.

"Police said there was a history of officers attending the shooter’s home for mental health-related call-outs, some of which concerned guns.

There was no evidence to suggest <modsnip: misgendering> was bullied at school for being transgender, police said."

Revealed: 6ft trans school shooter wanted to be ‘petite’

Social media posts uncovered by The Telegraph reveal mental health issues of teenager who killed eight

www.telegraph.co.uk

I don't buy for a second that she wasn't bullied. <modsnip>

Jmo

 

[otto]

<modsnip: Quoted post was removed due to misgendering>

Sounds like there were many warning signs.

"But as their investigation begins, many wonder if the 18-year-old’s interest in firearms, past mass shootings and drugs — as evidenced on social media — along with a history of mental health interactions with police were warning signs for what was to come.
...

The U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism (COE) found “a fascination with violence and white supremacy” on two more accounts associated with Van Rootselaar. The COE identified an X account sharing content celebrating a 2022 Buffalo supermarket mass shooting and the 2019 attack on the Christchurch mosque in New Zealand.

The profile photo featured an image of the latter gunman over a Sonnenrad, a neo-Nazi symbol, and a transgender pride flag. Antisemitic content was also shared on the account. “I need to hate jews because the zionists want me to hate jews. This benefits them, somehow,” reads a post two days before the shooting.

The ADL said the user also pushed the Northwest Territorial Imperative, a 1970s white-separatist movement which encouraged Caucasians to relocate to the Northwestern states to establish an ethnostate in the region."

same link ...

What we have learned about the warning signs of Tumbler Ridge mass shooter

Jesse Van Rootselaar had an interest in firearms, past mass shootings and drugs, along with a history of mental health interactions with police

nationalpost.com

 

[otto]

I don't buy for a second that she wasn't bullied. Every transgender person I have known was bullied.

Jmo

It sounds like Jesse was the bully. Jesse picked up a gun and shot at least 34 people in a school where Jesse was not a student and had not been a student for 4 years. Over the past 4 years, Jesse pursued an interest in shooting people, illegal drugs, school shooters, and violent fringe groups. Jesse had mental health issues and was involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric ward at some time during the past 2 years.

 

[SouthAussie]

RCMP have confirmed the identities of the victims.

Victims from Tumbler Ridge Secondary School

• Abel Mwansa: 12 years old
• Ezekiel Schofield: 13 years old
• Kylie Smith: 12 years old
• Zoey Benoit: 12 years old
• Ticaria Lampert: 12 years old
• Shannda Aviugana-Durand: 39 years old

Victims from residence on Fellers Avenue

• Emmett Jacobs: 11 years old
• Jennifer Jacobs: 39 years old

Who was the Tumbler Ridge shooter? What we know

The B.C. RCMP have identified the suspect in the Tumbler Ridge school shooting as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, a resident of the northeastern B.C. community.

www.ctvnews.ca

 

[Calcano]

I couldn't care less if this person's identity issues made their life difficult or not, or if living in a small town was difficult or not, or any other excuse. Zero sympathy for a person who guns down children. People face hardships of all kinds growing up and they don't become mass murderers. We can try to learn from incidents like this to prevent more happening in the future but that seems like a futile task. Some people are just pure evil.

 

[Rikissa]

RCMP have confirmed the identities of the victims.

Victims from Tumbler Ridge Secondary School

• Abel Mwansa: 12 years old
• Ezekiel Schofield: 13 years old
• Kylie Smith: 12 years old
• Zoey Benoit: 12 years old
• Ticaria Lampert: 12 years old
• Shannda Aviugana-Durand: 39 years old

Victims from residence on Fellers Avenue

• Emmett Jacobs: 11 years old
• Jennifer Jacobs: 39 years old

Who was the Tumbler Ridge shooter? What we know

The B.C. RCMP have identified the suspect in the Tumbler Ridge school shooting as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, a resident of the northeastern B.C. community.

www.ctvnews.ca

I would guess that the victims at the school were class/year mates of the killed brother. It makes me wonder, was the brother being bullied by his class mates, perhaps because of the shooter? Or did the brother have lots of friends, and that angered and/or made the shooter envious, lacking friends?

 

[MistyWaters]

These comments are from the parents of one of the injured girls who is still fighting for her life in BCs Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. Very honourable I’d say, to speak out for the mother who lost her life.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/tumbler-ridge-bc-shooting-victim-parents-maya-gebala-9.7087967

“……Gebala and Edmonds, his former partner, say they are frustrated that some of the posts have attracted angry comments directed at the mother of the shooter, Jennifer Strang, who was also killed in the massacre.

Edmonds says she was friends with Strang and used to babysit the shooter — 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar — as a child.

Edmonds told CBC News she weeps for all the people affected by the tragedy that unfolded in Tumbler Ridge, including Strang.

Edmonds says she watched the single mother, who she said worked long shifts at a nearby mine, fight to help her child.

Edmonds says at one point, Van Rootselaar tried to light a mattress on fire "and burn the house down." She said the teen had been hospitalized several times with mental health issues.

"People are trying to politicize what this is about," Edmonds said "It's not about guns. It's not about transgenderism. It's about mental health. It's about a lack of resources."

"[Strang] really — I truly believe that in her heart — did everything she could to try to help … I know that she struggled."….”

 

[MistyWaters]

Father of Tumbler Ridge school shooter issues statement: ‘I carry a sorrow’ | Globalnews.ca

BC RCMP confirmed that multiple police visits had been made to the 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar's home due to concerns of mental health and self-harm.

globalnews.ca

Above link is a statement from the ‘estranged’ biological father of Jesse. We know the man used the courts to prevent the mother and his child from moving to NL to be close to her family so I’m not quite convinced the reason he had no part of his child’s life was because his ex ‘gave him no opportunity’.

Oddly, it’s written as if he also lives in Tumbler Ridge???
JMO

 

[iamshadow21]

These comments are from the parents of one of the injured girls who is still fighting for her life in BCs Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. Very honourable I’d say, to speak out for the mother who lost her life.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/tumbler-ridge-bc-shooting-victim-parents-maya-gebala-9.7087967

“……Gebala and Edmonds, his former partner, say they are frustrated that some of the posts have attracted angry comments directed at the mother of the shooter, Jennifer Strang, who was also killed in the massacre.

Edmonds says she was friends with Strang and used to babysit the shooter — 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar — as a child.

Edmonds told CBC News she weeps for all the people affected by the tragedy that unfolded in Tumbler Ridge, including Strang.

Edmonds says she watched the single mother, who she said worked long shifts at a nearby mine, fight to help her child.

Edmonds says at one point, Van Rootselaar tried to light a mattress on fire "and burn the house down." She said the teen had been hospitalized several times with mental health issues.

"People are trying to politicize what this is about," Edmonds said "It's not about guns. It's not about transgenderism. It's about mental health. It's about a lack of resources."

"[Strang] really — I truly believe that in her heart — did everything she could to try to help … I know that she struggled."….”

Removing access to guns would have made a difference, though. It's a hard truth, but it is true. People struggling with mental health shouldn't have access to weapons like guns, especially children struggling with mental health. It's just too easy to do real harm to oneself or others with them. It's protecting someone who isn't able to make good choices or safe choices to keep guns away from them.

The shooter is still absolutely responsible for her own choices, but I can't help but think of the people that might still be living were those guns securely stored or not at the home at all.

MOO

 

[MistyWaters]

'You can't blame people for mental health': Neighbours don't see Tumbler Ridge shooter as a criminal but as a victim

Tumbler Ridge residents who live three doors down from where Jesse Van Rootselaar killed her mother and stepbrother point to mental health failings.

edmontonjournal.com

This article might be paylocked without a subscription so I’ll summarize it.

Forgive me mods but I must quote this one sentence because it so eloquently expresses how locals in small communities often turn protectively inward from the gaggles of media who descend upon them. “Residents laying flowers or stuffed animals at the makeshift memorial downtown not only refuse to speak to the many media crews who have stationed themselves there, they don’t spare them the dirty looks or shakes of the head”.

The article also focuses on the lack of mental health resources in Tumbler Ridge (possibly much the same as any somewhat isolated community in the north country). The couple interviewed have a granddaughter who managed to hide from the school shootings. They were also neighbours, living three doors away from the shooter’s Fellers Ave home. They’re concerned for the three other children who lived in the Strang/Van Rootselaar home. They blame mental supports which they say are not just lacking, they’re non-existent. Closest is Vancouver 6 hours away, the community has only 1.5 fte MDs for a community of 2,400.

 

[tlcya]

These comments are from the parents of one of the injured girls who is still fighting for her life in BCs Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. Very honourable I’d say, to speak out for the mother who lost her life.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/tumbler-ridge-bc-shooting-victim-parents-maya-gebala-9.7087967

“……Gebala and Edmonds, his former partner, say they are frustrated that some of the posts have attracted angry comments directed at the mother of the shooter, Jennifer Strang, who was also killed in the massacre.

Edmonds says she was friends with Strang and used to babysit the shooter — 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar — as a child.

Edmonds told CBC News she weeps for all the people affected by the tragedy that unfolded in Tumbler Ridge, including Strang.

Edmonds says she watched the single mother, who she said worked long shifts at a nearby mine, fight to help her child.

Edmonds says at one point, Van Rootselaar tried to light a mattress on fire "and burn the house down." She said the teen had been hospitalized several times with mental health issues.

"People are trying to politicize what this is about," Edmonds said "It's not about guns. It's not about transgenderism. It's about mental health. It's about a lack of resources."

"[Strang] really — I truly believe that in her heart — did everything she could to try to help … I know that she struggled."….”

I give Edmonds credit for being able to see past her own immediate worry about her own child's injury to see a larger picture and extend some grace to Strang's mother, who is also a victim.

Just a terrible case. Prayers all around for those affected.

 

[seasideForest]

I would guess that the victims at the school were class/year mates of the killed brother. It makes me wonder, was the brother being bullied by his class mates, perhaps because of the shooter? Or did the brother have lots of friends, and that angered and/or made the shooter envious, lacking friends?

I thought he was a year younger than those killed? He might still have been at the Elementary School.

The shooter might have had other reasons for killing the youngest in the school? MOO

ETA: change of word

 

[seasideForest]

"People are trying to politicize what this is about," Edmonds said "It's not about guns. It's not about transgenderism. It's about mental health. It's about a lack of resources."

"[Strang] really — I truly believe that in her heart — did everything she could to try to help … I know that she struggled."….”

While I'm sure it is about mental health and lack of resources, I'm not sure that guns can be discounted so early on. An occurrence like this can have various different aspects.

To me it would make a great deal of sense to have NO guns in the vicinity of a teen or child with mental health problems, not even locked up. Just nowhere in the household.
JMO

 

[MistyWaters]

While I'm sure it is about mental health and lack of resources, I'm not sure that guns can be discounted so early on. An occurrence like this can have various different aspects.

To me it would make a great deal of sense to have NO guns in the vicinity of a teen or child with mental health problems, not even locked up. Just nowhere in the household.
JMO

Yes it would however in northern communities guns are much more prevalent than they are in major urban centres, often because of hunting and/or protection. If someone is desperate to get guns, then comes the potential for violent home or business robberies armed with knives, axes, baseball bats, fires etc. But if mental health wasn’t a problem, violent actions wouldn’t result in deaths so possibly their view is taking away all the guns in a community still doesn’t address the primary issue of mental illness.
JMO