A remote Canadian mining town of 2,500 people became the site of the nation’s deadliest school shooting in 37 years when an 18-year-old opened fire, killing eight people and wounding 27 others before dying by suicide—raising urgent questions about how weapons once confiscated were returned to someone with documented mental health struggles.
Story Snapshot
- Jesse Van Rootselaar killed her mother and stepbrother at home before attacking Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on February 10, 2026
- Six victims died at the school—a 39-year-old teacher and five students aged 12-13—while police arrived within two minutes of the attack
- The shooter had a lapsed firearms license and weapons previously seized by authorities but later returned despite prior police and mental health contacts
- British Columbia Premier David Eby ordered a review of health system interactions as investigators work to determine motive in Canada’s deadliest mass shooting since 2020
How Guns Were Returned to a Troubled Teenager
Jesse Van Rootselaar owned firearms despite a history that should have raised every red flag in Canada’s strict gun control system. The RCMP confirmed the 18-year-old had prior interactions with both police and mental health services. Her firearms license had lapsed. At some point, authorities confiscated her weapons—a long gun and a modified handgun—only to return them later. That decision now sits at the center of a provincial review ordered by Premier Eby, who bluntly asked how the system failed to prevent this tragedy in a nation that prides itself on firearm regulations stricter than those south of the border.
Two Minutes Between Hell and Heroism
The attack unfolded with brutal speed around 2:00 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. Van Rootselaar first killed her 39-year-old mother and 11-year-old stepbrother at their Fellers Avenue home. She then drove to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, where she had been a student until dropping out four years earlier. Armed and determined, she entered the combined middle and high school and opened fire, killing a 39-year-old female teacher and five children—three 12-year-old girls and two boys aged 12 and 13. Students scrambled to barricade doors. Twelve-year-old Maya Gebala, shot in the head and neck, helped secure the library door before collapsing in critical condition.
A Town Where Everyone Knows Everyone
Tumbler Ridge is not the kind of place where tragedy hides in anonymity. This blue-collar mining community in British Columbia’s Rocky Mountain foothills counts just 2,500 souls—miners, teachers, families who know each other by name. RCMP Superintendent Ken Floyd confirmed what residents already knew: nearly everyone in town has a connection to at least one victim. The school serves both middle and high school students, centralizing the community’s children in one building. When Van Rootselaar fired her weapons, she shattered an entire town’s sense of safety, not just a classroom’s.
What the Investigation Reveals and Conceals
RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald provided the sparse facts investigators have assembled. Van Rootselaar acted alone. No manifesto or suicide note was found. Her motive remains unknown. There is no evidence of school bullying driving her actions, despite her having attended the school until 2022. Authorities confirmed she began transitioning at age 12, six years before the attack, and publicly identified as a woman—a detail RCMP stated factually without suggesting causation. The investigation continues, but the absence of a clear motive leaves a void that speculation rushes to fill, particularly around mental health failures and firearm return protocols.
National Mourning and Political Reckoning
Prime Minister Mark Carney ordered flags flown at half-staff for seven days and addressed the nation, insisting resilient Canadians would endure this horror together. King Charles expressed being “profoundly shocked.” Federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree praised the RCMP’s two-minute response time. Yet the political response extends beyond condolences. Premier Eby’s demand for a systemic review signals recognition that procedural breakdowns allowed a troubled young woman to reclaim deadly weapons. This massacre ranks as the deadliest Canadian school shooting since the 1989 École Polytechnique attack that killed 14, and the deadliest mass shooting overall since a 2020 Nova Scotia rampage left 22 dead and triggered an assault weapon ban.
The Uncomfortable Questions About Mental Health and Accountability
Van Rootselaar’s mental health struggles were known. Her interactions with police were documented. Her firearms license had expired. Yet she regained access to guns capable of massacring children. Canada’s gun laws are among the world’s strictest, designed precisely to prevent such failures. The question now is whether those laws were undermined by bureaucratic incompetence, misguided compassion, or systemic gaps in coordinating health records with firearm licensing. The victims—ranging from an 11-year-old boy killed at home to 12-year-old students executed in hallways—deserved a system that worked. Their families deserve answers about why it didn’t, and whether ideology or procedure prioritized the shooter’s access over public safety.
