Who is Jesse Van Rootselaar?
The transgendered teenager had a history of mental health issues and interactions with police in the years leading up to the tragic shootings that claimed eight lives, including six children
As the shellshocked families of six children and two women grieve their loss in one of the worst mass shootings in Canada’s history, details are emerging about the shooter’s mental health struggles and history with police.
The shooter was identified as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who was born male, began transitioning six years ago and identified as female, Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said at a news conference on Wednesday, Feb. 11.
Police identified Van Rootselaar using her chosen name, McDonald said.
On Tuesday, Van Rootselaar killed her 39-year-old mother and 11-year-old stepbrother at their home in the tiny hamlet of Tumbler Ridge, about 700 miles north of Vancouver. She then went to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and apparently began shooting at random, McDonald said.
She killed five people at the school, one in a stairwell and the rest in the library, McDonald said. They victims were three 12-year-old girls, a 12-year-old boy, a 13-year-old boy and a 39-year-old woman who worked as a teacher at the school. Police initially had said there were six victims at the school but corrected that to five on Wednesday, saying a woman airlifted to the hospital in critical condition was mistakenly counted as being among the dead.
When police arrived within two minutes of the beginning of the shooting, McDonald said that Van Rootselaar fired shots in their direction and that they ran inside the building. They then found Van Rootselaar dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They also recovered a long gun and a modified handgun from the scene.
Here’s what we know so far about Van Rootselaar, what police are saying anything about a motive, and more about her disturbing online history.
Jesse Van Rootselaar was known to police
In the last several years, police had responded to Jesse Van Rootselaar’s home on “multiple occasions” over concerns with her mental health, McDonald told reporters on Wednesday.
A couple of years ago, he said that police seized firearms from the home and had taken Van Rootselaar in for assessments at hospitals under Canada’s Mental Health Act. McDonald said police last visited the home sometime last year and didn’t know if Van Rootselaar was actively getting treatment for her mental health troubles.
About the weapons seizure, he said that at a later point in time, “the lawful owner of those firearms petitioned for those firearms to be returned and they were.”
He said that Van Rootselaar did not have any firearms registered in her name