Canada school shooting latest: Police identify 18-year-old suspect in killing of eight including mother and brother – UK Times

British Columbia Premier David Eby got emotional at a news conference when mentioning a young girl who was hospitalized from the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting.

Eby said Wednesday he was praying for the girl who is fighting for her life, per CBC.

Canadian police said eight people, including six children, were killed in the shooting and another two victims were airlifted to the hospital with “significant injuries.”

Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka asked his community Wednesday to lean on each other amid their grief.

“Lend your ear when somebody needs your ear. Lend your shoulder when somebody needs your shoulder,” he said at a news conference, per CBC, after eight people wre killed in a mass shooting Tuesday.

Larry Neufeld, a member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, has urged people in Tumbler Ridge to seek counseling services after Tuesday’s mass shooting.

“Today, our hearts are shattered,” he wrote on X Wednesday. “Grief, shock, anger, fear. These are heavy burdens to carry alone. Please, do not carry them alone.”

He said that free counseling services were available, writing, “Seeking help is not a sign of weakness; it is an act of courage and care for yourself and your loved ones.”

Eight people, including six children, were killed in a deadly mass shooting that rocked Tumbler Ridge, a small, close-knit community located in British Columbia.

Among those killed Tuesday are Abel Mwansa Jr. and Kylie May, both 12, according to their families. Police are yet to release the victims’ identities.

More than 25 other people were injured in the shooting that has become one of the deadliest to occur in Canada, according to initial police estimates. The suspected shooter, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who police say killed her 39-year-old mother and 11-year-old stepbrother at a nearby home before opening fire at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, was also found dead with a “self-inflicted injury.”

Police said the teenager was born biologically male but had been transitioning to female over the past six years. She was not a student at the school but it was not immediately clear if she had previously studied at Tumbler Ridge Secondary.

A candlelit vigil for the victims of the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge will be held at the British Columbia Legislature at 7 p.m. local time tonight.

Canadian police said Wednesday that they visited the home of the 18-year-old girl suspected of carrying out the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge last spring over “self harm” concerns.

Dwayne McDonald, deputy commissioner for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, said that authorities visited Jesse Van Rootselaar’s home “on multiple occasions over the past several years, dealing with concerns of mental health with respect to our suspect.”

McDonald said that before the shooting, police last visited the home in the “spring of last year” over “concerns regarding mental health, self harm.”