What mental health history did Jesse Van Rootselaar have?<\/p>\n
How does online radicalization link to recent shootings?<\/p>\n
What community actions followed the Tumbler Ridge shooting?<\/p>\n
Why did police search Nancy Guthrie\u2019s septic tank?<\/p>\n
As the shellshocked families of six children and two women grieve their loss in one of the worst mass shootings in Canada\u2019s history, details are emerging about the shooter\u2019s mental health struggles and history with police.<\/p>\n
The shooter was identified as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who was born male, began transitioning six years ago and identified as female, Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said at a news conference on Wednesday, Feb. 11.<\/p>\n
Police identified Van Rootselaar using her chosen name, McDonald said.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Van Rootselaar killed her 39-year-old mother and 11-year-old stepbrother at their home in the tiny hamlet of Tumbler Ridge, about 700 miles north of Vancouver. She then went to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and apparently began shooting at random, McDonald said.<\/p>\n
She killed five people at the school, one in a stairwell and the rest in the library, McDonald said. They victims were three 12-year-old girls, a 12-year-old boy, a 13-year-old boy and a 39-year-old woman who worked as a teacher at the school. Police initially had said there were six victims at the school but corrected that to five on Wednesday, saying a woman airlifted to the hospital in critical condition was mistakenly counted as being among the dead.<\/p>\n
When police arrived within two minutes of the beginning of the shooting, McDonald said that Van Rootselaar fired shots in their direction and that they ran inside the building. They then found Van Rootselaar dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They also recovered a long gun and a modified handgun from the scene.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what we know so far about Van Rootselaar, what police are saying anything about a motive, and more about her disturbing online history.<\/p>\n
Students walk out of the school building with their hands up after an assailant opened fire at a high school in the town of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, on Feb. 10, 2026.
\nJesse Van Rootselaar was known to police
\nIn the last several years, police had responded to Jesse Van Rootselaar\u2019s home on \u201cmultiple occasions\u201d over concerns with her mental health, McDonald told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
A couple of years ago, he said that police seized firearms from the home and had taken Van Rootselaar in for assessments at hospitals under Canada\u2019s Mental Health Act. McDonald said police last visited the home sometime last year and didn\u2019t know if Van Rootselaar was actively getting treatment for her mental health troubles.<\/p>\n
About the weapons seizure, he said that at a later point in time, \u201cthe lawful owner of those firearms petitioned for those firearms to be returned and they were.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that Van Rootselaar did not have any firearms registered in her name.<\/p>\n
Flowers and toys lie on the ground near the site of a mass shooting at a school in the town of Tumber Ridge, British Columbia, Canada on Feb. 11, 2026.
\nWhat are police saying about a potential motive?
\nThere is no immediate information to suggest that Van Rootselaar was a victim of bullying, McDonald said, adding that she dropped out of Tumbler Ridge Secondary School four years ago. He did not clarify as to why.<\/p>\n
He said investigators haven\u2019t found a note to shed light on Van Rootselaar\u2019s motives and that investigators don\u2019t believe she was targeting anyone specific during the shooting at the school. They also believe she acted alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have an idea yet as to motive,\u201d McDonald said. \u201cIt is something that we are certainly passionately pursuing but it would be too early to speculate on motive at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crime scene tape surrounds a high school with a Pride flag painted on a window, at the site of a deadly mass shooting in the town of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada on Feb. 11, 2026.
\nAnti-hate group: Shooter had \u2018troubling pattern\u2019 online
\nThe Anti-Defamation League\u2019s Center on Extremism says their preliminary findings show that Van Rootselaar \u201cfollowed a troubling pattern of online radicalization\u201d and that she had \u201ca self-described addiction to gore content.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group said that Van Rootselaar had \u201can extensive digital footprint across platforms,\u201d including a site where users can watch videos of people being beheaded, tortured, raped and executed. The ADL has studied the website and issued warnings about it.<\/p>\n
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\nIn a report issued last year, the ADL says that two mass shooters in recent history had created accounts on the site and \u201cincreasingly engaged with extremist ideologies, including adopting white supremacist views.\u201d They identified the shooters as: 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, who killed a teacher and a teenage student and wounded six at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, before killing herself in December 2024; and 17-year-old Solomon Henderson, who fatally shot a 16-year-old girl and wounded a boy at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee, before dying by suicide in January 2025<\/p>\n
The site, the ADL says, \u201cserves as a virtual space where users \u2212 young people in particular \u2212 can access extremist content alongside graphic violence, potentially desensitizing them and increasing the risk of ideologically motivated violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Online hate communities: Two students who became school shooters
\nShooter\u2019s mom supported trans rights, posted about guns
\nOn what appears to be her Instagram account, Van Rootselaar\u2019s mother posted in July that she supports protecting trans children and criticized \u201ckeyboard warriors.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a conservative leaning libertarian who lives in the north and loves living in a small town, I really hope the hate I see online is just bored old people and not true hatred,\u201d she wrote in July 2024. \u201cDo better and educate yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
In September 2025, she posted about Charlie Kirk\u2019s assassination, saying that she was glad she was neither far right or far left politically, adding: \u201cPolitical extremism blinded by rage is mental.\u201d<\/p>\n
On her Facebook page, she posted about being a gun owner. She once updated her profile picture to a photo of six guns in a rack with the comment: \u201cThink it\u2019s time to take them out for some target practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a July 2021 post, she wrote that her followers should check out her son Jesse\u2019s YouTube channel. \u201cHe posts about hunting, self reliance, guns and stuff he likes to do,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is his way of sharing his life.\u201d<\/p>\n
YouTube had removed the channel by Wednesday, writing that it \u201cwas removed because it violated our Community Guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flowers and toys lie on the ground near the site of a mass shooting at a high school, in the town of Tumber Ridge, British Columbia, Canada Feb. 11, 2026.
\nWhat\u2019s happening in Tumbler Ridge now?
\nInvestigators are looking into every aspect of the case, including how Van Rootselaar got the guns despite her struggles with mental health.<\/p>\n
While some families are mourning the loss of their loved ones, two surviving victims of the shooting are in critical condition and fighting for their lives, McDonald said.<\/p>\n
The community of Tumbler Ridge, which has a population of about 2,400 people, is reeling and working together to support those immediately affected by the shootings. They left bouquets of flowers and stuffed animals outside the school, where one window displayed a rainbow flag and the message: \u201cEveryone is welcome here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI will know every victim \u2026 We\u2019re a small community,\u201d Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka told CBC News. \u201cI don\u2019t call them residents. I call them family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers breaking news, cold case investigations and the death penalty for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.<\/p>\n
Contributing: Michael Loria, USA TODAY<\/p>\n
This story was updated to add a map of Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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