{"id":282222,"date":"2026-02-13T13:01:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/282222\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T13:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:01:16","slug":"remote-town-grieves-8-killed-in-canadas-deadliest-attack-in-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/282222\/","title":{"rendered":"Remote town grieves 8 killed in Canada’s deadliest attack in years"},"content":{"rendered":"

The families of victims of a shooting in a remote Canadian Rockies town grappled with unrelenting grief as details emerged about those killed in the country’s deadliest mass shooting in years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Authorities said the 18-year-old alleged shooter<\/a>, identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, killed her 39-year-old mother, Jennifer Jacobs, and 11-year-old stepbrother, Emmett Jacobs, in their northern British Columbia home on Tuesday (local time) before heading to the nearby Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and opening fire, killing five children and an educator before killing herself.<\/p>\n

Twenty-five people were also injured in the attack. The motive remains unclear.<\/p>\n

Among the dead was 12-year-old Kylie Smith, whose family remembered her as “the light in our family\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This undated photo provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shows Kylie Smith, who was killed in a school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cShe loved her family, friends, and going to school,” Kylie’s family said in a statement. \u201cShe was a talented artist and had dreams of going to art school in the big city of Toronto. Rest in paradise, sweet girl, our family will never be the same without you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kylie’s father tearfully recounted the desperate hours spent trying to learn what happened to his daughter, only to find out from an older girl, not the authorities.<\/p>\n

Lance Younge told CTV News that his son, Ethan, texted \u201cI love you\u201d shortly after 3pm and then called a short time later to say he was hiding in a utility room at his school in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, but that he didn’t know where his sister Kylie was.<\/p>\n

The family would find out hours later that Kylie was among the dead.<\/p>\n

While looking for Kylie, Younge said he walked around the local recreation centre where students were reuniting with their families for about six hours, but that police wouldn’t tell him anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went home not knowing where my daughter was until a high school kid … came here and told us her story about trying to save my daughter\u2019s life,” he said. “The police didn\u2019t tell us anything. We had to find out through the community and through kids and rumours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authorities on Thursday identified the other victims as Abel Mwansa, Zoey Benoit and Ticaria Lampert, all age 12, as well as 13-year-old Ezekiel Schofield and assistant teacher Shannda Aviugana-Durand, 39.<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left to right: Zoey Benoit, Abel Mwansa, Ezekiel Schofield, Kylie Smith, and Emmett Jacobs were among those killed in the shooting. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

In a statement, Zoey’s family described her as \u201cresilient, vibrant, smart, caring and the strongest little girl you could meet”.<\/p>\n

Peter Schofield, whose grandson, Ezekiel, was killed, shared his grief in a Facebook post, saying: \u201cEverything feels so surreal. The tears just keep flowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

A need for mental health services<\/p>\n

Trent Ernst, publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines, the town’s biweekly newspaper, said he has been \u201crandomly breaking down and weeping at inopportune times, usually when talking to people about what is happening”.<\/p>\n

He said he knows Maya Gebala, 12, who was wounded in the head and neck, and Paige Hoekstra, 19, who also suffered bullet wounds. Both were hospitalised in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

He said he spoke with Maya at a recent town winter carnival, describing her as \u201cfunky and vivacious\u201d and \u201cfull of life\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This grab from video shows students exiting the Tumbler Ridge school after deadly shootings, in British Columbia, Canada. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Ernst said one of the biggest frustrations in the community is the lack of medical support and, in particular, mental health services. Rootselaar had a history of police visits to her home to check on her mental health, authorities said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of people that I\u2019ve talked to are more sad at the fact that Tumbler Ridge doesn\u2019t have the level of support for mental health and health services in general,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this had happened three hours later, our clinic would have been closed, and there would be no emergency room there,” he said, adding that it would likely have reopened under such exceptional circumstances.<\/p>\n

In particular, Ernst said there’s a severe lack of mental health services in the Canadian Rockies town, which has roughly 2700 residents and is more than 1000 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, near the provincial border with Alberta.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, there are five mental health nurses in town. But this is the exception, and it\u2019s an exceptional situation. There are times where we\u2019ll go months, if not years, without having anybody in mental health services in town,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Alleged shooter led a nomadic life<\/p>\n

Rootselaar, who was born a biological male but identified as female, and her family led a \u201cnomadic lifestyle\u201d marked by multiple moves between at least three Canadian provinces, according to a 2015 British Columbia court ruling.<\/p>\n

The court’s decision in a dispute between the alleged shooter\u2019s parents described her mother, Jennifer Jacobs, moving with her children between Newfoundland, Grand Cache in Alberta and Powell River, British Columbia, in the previous five years.<\/p>\n

Her mother, also known as Jennifer Strang, was found to have engaged in \u201creprehensible conduct\u201d by failing to give her children\u2019s father enough notice that she was moving back to Newfoundland in August 2015.<\/p>\n

Jacobs was ordered in the court ruling to return their children to British Columbia.<\/p>\n

A community grieves<\/p>\n

\"More<\/p>\n

More than 25 people were wounded Wednesday in the attack in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Mourners braved frigid cold Wednesday night to honour the victims, with Mayor Darryl Krakowka telling them, \u201cIt\u2019s OK to cry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krakowka described the town as \u201cone big family,\u201d and encouraged people to reach out and support each other, especially the families of those who died in the attack. The community must support victims\u2019 families \u201cforever,\u201d not only in the days and weeks to come, he said.<\/p>\n

Police recovered a long gun and a modified handgun at the school that they said Rootselaar used in the attack.<\/p>\n

Dwayne McDonald, deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, said Wednesday there was no information that anyone at the school was targeted. He said officers arrived at the school two minutes after the initial call and that shots were fired in their direction when they showed up.<\/p>\n

\u201cParents, grandparents, sisters, and brothers in Tumbler Ridge will wake up without someone they love. The nation mourns with you, and Canada stands by you,\u201d an emotional Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday as he arrived in Parliament.<\/p>\n

Carney, who said flags at government buildings will be flown at half-staff for seven days, planned to visit Tumbler Ridge on Friday.<\/p>\n

Deadliest rampage since 2020<\/p>\n

The attack was Canada\u2019s deadliest since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The families of victims of a shooting in a remote Canadian Rockies town grappled with unrelenting grief as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67,42,43,64,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-282222","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-crime-and-justice","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-north-america","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}