Suspect in Canada shooting is identified as an 18-year-old

(AP) — The suspect in a Canada school shooting was an 18-year-old who had a history of police visits to her home to check on her mental health, authorities said Wednesday, a day after the attack that killed eight people in a remote part of British Columbia.

Police said Jesse Van Rootselaar was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted wound following the assault on a school in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said Van Rootselaar first killed her mother and stepbrother at the family home before attacking the nearby school. She had a history of mental health contacts with police, he said.

The motive was unclear.

Police initially said nine people were killed Tuesday, but McDonald clarified Wednesday that there were eight fatalities. McDonald said the discrepancy arose from a victim who was airlifted to a medical center. Authorities mistakenly thought that person had died.

More than 25 people were wounded.

The town of 2,700 people in the Canadian Rockies is more than 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) northeast of Vancouver, near the provincial border with Alberta.

Police said the victims included a 39-year-old teacher and five students, ages 12 to 13.

The killings at the home occurred first, McDonald said. A young family member at the home went to a neighbor, who called police. The bodies of the suspect's mother, who was also 39, and her 11-year-old stepbrother were found at the home.

At the school, one victim was found in a stairwell and the rest, McDonald believed, were found in the library. The suspect was not related to any of the victims at the school, he said.

“There is no information at this point that anyone was specifically targeted," McDonald said.

Police recovered a long gun and a modified handgun. McDonald said officers arrived at the school two minutes after the initial call. When they arrived, shots were fired in their direction.

“Parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers in Tumbler Ridge will wake up without someone they love. The nation mourns with you, and Canada stands by you,” an emotional Prime Minister Mark Carney said as he arrived in Parliament.

The attack was Canada’s deadliest rampage since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead.

Carney said flags at government buildings will be flown at half-staff for seven days and added: “We will get through this."

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