Ottawa: The shooter who killed eight people in British Columbia has been identified as a transgender female by officials, who said the person’s mother and stepbrother were among the victims.
Police also revised on Wednesday the number of victims in Tuesday’s shootings at a school and a home downwards to eight because they said they had mistakenly thought a woman being taken to hospital with serious injuries had died, but she was in a serious condition.
Including the shooter’s suicide, the total toll is nine.
As the country mourned the rare massacre in the nation of strict gun laws, Canadian federal police Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald identified the shooter as Jesse Van Rootselaar, an 18-year-old male who began transitioning to female six years ago.
He said that he would refer to the person as a female.
Prime Minister Mark Carney told Parliament that the killings in Tumbler Ridge “left our nation in shock and all of us in mourning”.
“It is a town of miners, teachers, construction workers — families who have built their lives there, people who have always shown up for each other there”, he said.
The shootings reverberated across the small town of only about 2,400 people in a mining area.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent his condolences, saying in a X post, “India stands in solidarity with the people of Canada in this moment of profound grief”.
McDonald said the mother and stepbrother were first killed in their house by Van Rootselaar, who then went on a rampage at the local high school before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
He said that a woman educator and five students — three girls and two boys ranging in age between 12 and 13 years — were found dead at the school library and on a staircase when police got there within two minutes of being alerted.
Van Rootselaar had dropped out of the school about four years ago, McDonald said.
Police had been called to the shooter’s house several times for mental health issues, and weapons were involved in some instances, McDonald said.
He said that weapons had been seized from the house but were given back when the lawful owner petitioned for their return.
Unlike the US to the south, Canada has stricter gun laws and has fewer shootings and mass attacks are rare.
The last major incident involving a school was in Montreal in 1989 when 14 died.
The worst Canadian massacre in recent times was in Nova Scotia in 2020, when over two days, a man shot dead 13 people and killed nine others by setting fire.
In the US, there have been two recent cases of transgender people carrying out mass shootings linked to schools.
In 2023, a transgender male killed three students and three staff members at a Christian school in Nashville.
In Minneapolis last year, a transgender female attacked a Catholic church during a prayer service for children from its school.
(IANS)
