Canada mourns victims of mass shooting at secondary school
A woman who police believed was the killer was found dead, apparently from a self-inflicted wound.
Canada is in mourning after seven people were shot dead at a school in a remote part of British Columbia and two others were killed at a nearby home.
A woman who police believed was the killer was found dead, apparently from a self-inflicted wound. The motive remained unclear.
More than 25 people were wounded in the attack in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, including two with life-threatening injuries who were airlifted for medical care.
The village of 2,700 people in the Canadian Rockies is more than 600 miles north east of Vancouver, near the provincial border with Alberta.
“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.
Mr Carney said flags at government buildings will be flown at half-staff for seven days and added: “We will get through this.”
Shelley Quist said her neighbour across the street lost her 12-year-son. “We heard his mom. She was in the street crying. She wanted her son’s body,” Ms Quist said.
She said her 17-year-old son, Darian, was on lockdown in the school for more than two hours. The provincial government website lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as having 175 students in grades 7 to 12.
“The grade sevens and eights, I think, were upstairs in the library, and that’s where the shooter went,” she said. Her son was in the library just 15 minutes prior to the attack.
Ms Quist was working at the hospital down the street when the shooting started.
“I was about to go run down to the school, but my coworker held me back. And then I was able to get Darian on the phone to know he was OK,” she said.
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.
British Columbia premier David Eby told reporters that police reached the school within two minutes.
A video showed students walking out with their hands raised as police vehicles surrounded the building and a helicopter circled overhead.
Police found six people dead, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Ken Floyd said. A seventh person died while being taken to hospital, and two more were found dead at a residence that authorities believe was connected to the attack.
Mr Floyd told reporters that investigators had identified the suspect but would not release a name. He said police were investigating the connection between the killer and the victims.
Tumbler Ridge mayor Darryl Krakowka said it was “devastating” to learn how many had died in the community, which he called a “big family”.
“I broke down,” Mr Krakowka said. “I have lived here for 18 years. I probably know every one of the victims.”
George Rowe of the Tumbler Ridge Fellowship Baptist Church went to the recreation centre where victims’ families were awaiting more information.
“It was not a pretty sight. Families are still waiting to hear if it’s their child that’s deceased and because of protocol and procedure, the investigating team is very careful in releasing names,” Rev Rowe said.
Rowe once taught at the high school, and his three children graduated from there.
“To walk through the corridors of that school will never be the same again,” he said.
