Seven people were killed in a shooting at a high school in a small mining community in northeastern British Columbia on Tuesday and another 25 were injured in one of the worst incidents of its kind in Canadian history.
RCMP in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., said the suspected shooter, as well as two other individuals found in a residence connected to the incident, are also dead, bringing the total to 10.
The injured were being assessed and triaged at a local medical centre for non-life-threatening injuries. In a district of 2,400 people, the killings touched everyone. Residents of the community were ordered to shelter in place for most of the afternoon.
“It’s an unbelievable tragedy that our community has to live through, that’ll take a very long time for us to heal,” said Chris Norbury, a local district councillor whose wife works at the high school and whose five-year-old daughter attends the nearby elementary school.
Mr. Norbury was among the parents that received notice shortly after 3 p.m. that the community’s schools had been placed on lockdown.
He works at the Tumbler Ridge Visitor Centre, which is located within a block of the high school. After the elementary school called to tell him his daughter was safe, he watched as emergency services gathered around the high school, blocking an access road. A helicopter hovered overhead.
Those who responded, he said, included paramedics and police, many of them intimately connected with those inside.
“The first responders, I can only imagine how they feel, having to see children that they know, fearful that have lost their lives,” Mr. Norbury said.
Mr. Norbury’s family emerged safe, but grief has touched everyone.
“Multiple people have died,” he said. “We all know them. And they were friends. And their parents were our friends.”
RCMP Superintendent Ken Floyd, North District Commander, said first responders, local businesses and community members were stepping up to support one another.
“At the end of the day, every citizen and every person in Tumbler Ridge, including our first responders, are going home to their families to try and explain this, and sometimes there’s just not a way to explain this,” he told reporters Tuesday night.
Tumbler Ridge RCMP received a report of an active shooter at the high school, which has a student population of 150, at about 1:20 p.m. on Tuesday.
An alert was broadcast to mobile phones in the area just after 2 p.m., warning residents and directing them to shelter in place, lock their doors and refrain from going outside. The suspect was described as a female in a dress with brown hair, according to the alert.
Around 6 p.m., police confirmed that six people had been found dead inside the high school, as well as the suspected shooter, with what appeared to be a self-inflicted injury.
Two additional victims were found dead at a secondary residential location “believed to be connected to the incident,” Supt. Floyd said, though he could not provide details on that connection.
Police are conducting “further searches of additional homes and properties to determine whether anyone else may be injured or otherwise linked” to Tuesday’s events, police said.
Schools began releasing students around 5 p.m., and the RCMP alert was officially lifted 45 minutes later.
The Tumbler Ridge Health Centre was put on Code Orange, signifying a mass casualty incident or large-scale emergency response, with restricted access protocols in place. The Northern Health Authority asked anyone in the region with non-life-threatening medical needs to postpone visits to the health centre.
Arianna Bazinet was driving home after having lunch when she saw police cars speeding into town. Moments later, the emergency alert came over her phone.
“I immediately sent it to my mom and said, ‘Hey, stay in the house, don’t go anywhere,’” Ms. Bazinet said. “We had no idea that it had actually started when kids went back to school at lunchtime.”
She learned about the shooting on Facebook from friends in the community. She said one of her friends’ little brothers was in the school at the time, but wasn’t injured. Another friend’s sister was still missing on Tuesday evening.
“They can’t find her, and it’s just horrible,” said Ms. Bazinet, who previously attended school there herself. “We’re hoping to hear good news. We’re praying for good news, but we can only hope.”
Trent Ernst, the publisher and sole reporter of local newspaper TumblerRidgeLines, heard about the shooting from a friend whose children attend the school. Mr. Ernst raced to the scene, immediately going live on Facebook from his car to share everything that was known at the time.
“Basically saying, you know, there’s something happening. We don’t know what. We have a report of a female with brown hair in a dress, active with a gun. And that was all I knew for quite a while,” he says.
One of Mr. Ernst’s children attended the school last year, and Mr. Ernst worked at the school for several months on a contract.
He held back emotion as he went live on Facebook again on Tuesday evening, reading out the RCMP press release announcing the staggering death toll.
“I don’t know what to say, other than be strong. Stay safe. Hold your kids tonight if you have ’em,” he said.
“Good day,” he added, to close the livestream. Then he corrected himself. “No. Not a good day.”
School shootings in Canada are relatively rare. In January, 2016, a 17-year-old shot and killed two brothers at their home in La Loche, in northern Saskatchewan. He then proceeded to La Loche Community School, where he fatally shot a teacher and a teacher’s aide. Seven others were injured.
The deadliest school shooting in Canada remains at École Polytechnique, an engineering university in Montréal where a man motivated by a hatred of feminists shot and killed 14 women in December, 1989. Thirteen others were injured.
The District of Tumbler Ridge, founded four decades ago to house coal miners and their families, issued a statement saying the community had “experienced a deeply distressing incident.”
“Our hearts are with all those affected, and we recognize that many residents may be feeling shocked, scared, and overwhelmed,” the statement said, while acknowledging the crisis was still unfolding and that residents should rely on official updates from the police for more details.
The Tumbler Ridge Parent Advisory Council said it was heartbroken by Tuesday’s events.
“There are no words that can ease the fear and pain that events like this cause in a school community,” the PAC said in a statement provided to The Globe by chair Nicole Noksana.
Amanda Oijen, a real estate agent in Tumbler Ridge, said people don’t expect this kind of violence to reach their tiny community.
It is the kind of town, she said, where people let their kids ride to school on bicycles, walk to the grocery store or stroll to the park, “things you wouldn’t normally do in a bigger place.”
“Parents are going to be more scared now, for sure,” she said. “It’s absolutely horrible.”
B.C. Premier David Eby commended the RCMP for their “heroic” response, noting that they were on the scene within two minutes of the first call.
“That fast response time meant what was already a devastating tragedy was prevented from being significantly worse,” he told reporters in Vancouver on Tuesday night.
He said the RCMP have not finished notifying next of kin so he couldn’t say how many victims were students at the school.
“We can’t imagine what the community is going through, but I know it’s causing us all to hug our kids a little bit tighter tonight.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was devastated by the shootings and sent his prayers and condolences to those affected.
“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 said in a statement.
“Our ability to come together in crisis is the best of our country – our empathy, our unity, and our compassion for each other.”
