Police identify suspect in Canada mass shooting

Asuspect has been identified in the mass shooting in a remote British Columbia town that left nine people dead, including the person believed to be the attacker. 

Police identified the suspected shooter as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who was found dead at the school where the shooting occurred from what police described as a self‑inflicted injury. Six victims were also found dead in the school, and two more at a nearby home. More than 25 people were wounded in the rampage, including two who were airlifted to hospital from the school with serious injuries.

The town of Tumbler Ridge is some 600 miles from the nearest large city, Vancouver, in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. It has a population of 2,400.

Mass shootings in Canada are rare due to the country’s strict gun laws. But locals have described Tumbler Ridge as a hunting town where gun ownership is common, in interviews with the media.

The shooting at Tumbler Ridge may be the deadliest school shooting since 14 women were killed in the Ecole Polytechnique massacre in Montreal on Dec. 6, 1989, before the gunman took his own life.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a post on social media that he was “devastated” by what he described as “horrific acts of violence.”

"I join Canadians in grieving with those whose lives have been changed irreversibly today, and in gratitude for the courage and selflessness of the first responders who risked their lives to protect their fellow citizens," he wrote.