In the days since Tuesday’s killings at the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, more information has emerged about both the victims and the shooter.<\/p>\n
A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer remained stationed outside Van Rootselaar’s home today.<\/p>\n
The modest brown house on a quiet, unassuming street was cordoned-off with police tape. Two overturned bicycles rested against the snow in the front yard.<\/p>\n
Van Rootselaar killed her 39-year-old mother and 11-year-old stepbrother in the house before heading to the school, where she shot dead six more people – five students and a teacher – then killed herself.<\/p>\n
The shooter’s estranged father, Justin Van Rootselaar, sent a statement to the public broadcaster CBC, offering condolences for a “senseless and unforgivable act of violence”.<\/p>\n
“As the biological father of the individual responsible, I carry a sorrow that is difficult to put into words,” the statement said, according to the CBC.<\/p>\n
The RCMP released a photo of the shooter today – who was known to have mental health issues. She is shown wearing a hoodie with an expressionless face.<\/p>\n
Vigil at town hall <\/p>\n
Mr Carney is expected to lead a vigil for the victims outside the town hall in Tumbler Ridge, which was built 45 years ago, 1,180kms north of Vancouver.<\/p>\n
The town was quiet early this morning and residents have voiced weariness over the influx of media attention following the tragedy.<\/p>\n
A sign ordering media to stay out was taped at the entrance of the community centre.<\/p>\n
![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0023e3a7-614.jpg\"\/)
\nThe mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, was one of the worst in Canadian history<\/p>\n
But inside the centre yesterday, there were hints of life inching back towards normal, including an ice rink packed with children playing hockey or working on their skating.<\/p>\n
In the evening, the mother of a victim, Sarah Lampert, addressed the media at the centre, saying she wanted to speak for her 12-year-old daughter Tacaria who had “a beautiful, strong voice that was silenced”.<\/p>\n
“She is forever my baby, because that’s what she was. She was a baby,” Ms Lampert said, fighting to contain her tears as she addressed a room full of cameras.<\/p>\n
Also killed at the school was 12-year-old Zoey Benoit.<\/p>\n
“She was so resilient, vibrant, smart, caring and the strongest little girl you could meet,” a statement from her family said.<\/p>\n
Peter Schofield’s 13-year-old grandson Ezekial was one of the six murdered students.<\/p>\n
“Everything feels so surreal. The tears just keep flowing,” he posted on Facebook.<\/p>\n
Mr Carney made an emotional address to parliament after the shootings, saying “these children and their teachers bore witness to unheard-of cruelty”.<\/p>\n
He described Tumbler Ridge as a town of miners, teachers and construction workers who represent “the very best of Canada: resilient, compassionate and strong”.<\/p>\n
The prime minister had been scheduled to attend the Munich Security Conference to discuss transatlantic defense with allies, but cancelled his plans following the shooting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadian police have said that the perpetrator of a mass shooting this week who killed eight people was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-296863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}