Toronto.- Canadian Police identified this Wednesday Jesse Vanrootselaar, 18, as the alleged perpetrator of the shooting that caused the death of at least nine people in a school in western Canada this Tuesday.
The deputy director of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the province of British Columbia,
Dwayne McDonald, also lowered the number of deceased, which had initially been established at ten, to nine, including the author of the massacre, who, according to investigators, took her own life.
Another 27 people were injured in the attack, two of them seriously, although the Police also said that in some cases the injuries were not directly caused by the shooter.
Fatalities include students and teachers
Among the fatalities are five students from Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, a remote town of about 2,400 inhabitants located inland in the province of British Columbia: three twelve-year-old girls and two boys, aged twelve and thirteen.
Another of the deceased is a school teacher, 39 years old, while the two dead located in a home in the town are the mother and half-brother, eleven years old, of Vanrootselaar.
McDonald stated in a press conference that Vanrootselaar was a person assigned male at birth and who began their transition six years ago and identified as a woman.
Mental Health Background and Weapons
The police official also reported that in the past the Police had had to go to Vanrootselaar’s home for mental health reasons and that officers had seized firearms.
According to McDonald’s account, the Police received the first information about the shooting at 1:20 p.m. local time on Tuesday (21:20 GMT), and two minutes later, the officers who responded to the call arrived at the school.
“As they approached the school, shots were fired in their direction. Officers entered the school within minutes to locate the threat. An individual who was confirmed to be the shooter was found dead with what appear to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds,” he explained.
In school, officers recovered two firearms: a rifle and a modified handgun.
McDonald did not want to speculate on the possible reasons for Vanrootselaar’s actions but confirmed that the author studied at the Tumbler Ridge school until four years ago.
“Our investigators are still at the scene, actively gathering information to determine all the circumstances of what happened,” he declared.
Political Impact and Cancellation of Sessions
In Ottawa, the Canadian Parliament canceled its sessions after observing a minute of silence and after the leaders of the political parties expressed their condolences.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney canceled the trip he planned to start this Wednesday to attend the Munich Security Conference, Germany.
In Parliament, Carney recalled that the Tumbler Ridge massacre is the second most serious suffered in a Canadian school since in 1989 an individual armed with a rifle killed 14 women at the École Polytechnique de Montréal.
The Montreal massacre led to a change in the country’s policies towards the restriction of firearms, especially those considered high-powered.
