Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, identified as transgender ex-student behind Tumbler Ridge mass shooting

Jesse van Rootselaar, an 18-year-old high school dropout born male and identifying as transgender, carried out a deadly rampage that killed nine people, including his mother and stepbrother, before turning the gun on himself at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.

The attack began Tuesday at a residence in the rural British Columbia community of Tumbler Ridge, where van Rootselaar murdered his mother and stepbrother. Authorities later discovered their bodies at a home connected to the incident. Van Rootselaar then proceeded to the school, where six more victims died inside the building.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald publicly identified van Rootselaar as the shooter on Wednesday. Initial emergency alerts described the suspect as a “female in a dress.” Police briefings referred to the perpetrator as a “gunperson,” while confirming the shooter’s transgender identity and male birth sex.

Van Rootselaar died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the school. The former student’s method of entry during school hours remains unclear. The rampage left at least 25 others injured, several with serious but mostly non-life-threatening wounds treated at a local hospital.

Responding officers arrived around 1:20 p.m. local time. The school entered lockdown, with students and staff barricaded in classrooms for over two hours before evacuation. The public threat alert ended by 5:45 p.m. once authorities deemed the scene secure.

No motive has been disclosed by investigators. The attack ranks among Canada’s deadliest, surpassed only by the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre (14 killed) and the 2020 Nova Scotia spree (22 killed).