Who is Jesse Van Rootselaar? Teen with mental health issues killed 8 in Canada

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.

What are police saying about a potential motive?

There is no immediate information to suggest that Van Rootselaar was a victim of bullying, McDonald said, adding that she dropped out of Tumbler Ridge Secondary School four years ago. He did not clarify as to why.

He said investigators haven’t found a note to shed light on Van Rootselaar’s motives and that investigators don’t believe she was targeting anyone specific during the shooting at the school. They also believe she acted alone.

“We don’t have an idea yet as to motive,” McDonald said. “It is something that we are certainly passionately pursuing but it would be too early to speculate on motive at this time.”

Anti-hate group: Shooter had ‘troubling pattern’ online

The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism says their preliminary findings show that Van Rootselaar “followed a troubling pattern of online radicalization” and that her online activity was “marked by engagement with white supremacist ideology and a self-described addiction to gore content.”

The group said that she had “an extensive digital footprint across platforms,” including a site where users can watch videos of people being beheaded, tortured, raped and executed. The ADL has studied the website and issued warnings about it.

In a report issued last year, the ADL says that two mass shooters in recent history had created accounts on the site and “increasingly engaged with extremist ideologies, including adopting white supremacist views.” They identified the shooters as: 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, who killed a teacher and a teenage student and wounded six at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, before killing herself in December 2024; and 17-year-old Solomon Henderson, who fatally shot a 16-year-old girl and wounded a boy at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee, before dying by suicide in January 2025.

The site, the ADL says, “serves as a virtual space where users − young people in particular − can access extremist content alongside graphic violence, potentially desensitizing them and increasing the risk of ideologically motivated violence.”

Shooter’s mom supported trans rights, posted about guns

On what appears to be her Instagram account, Van Rootselaar’s mother posted in July that she supports protecting trans children and criticized “keyboard warriors.”

“As a conservative leaning libertarian who lives in the north and loves living in a small town, I really hope the hate I see online is just bored old people and not true hatred,” she wrote in July 2024. “Do better and educate yourself.”

In September 2025, she posted about Charlie Kirk’s assassination, saying that she was glad she was neither far right or far left politically, adding: “Political extremism blinded by rage is mental.”

On her Facebook page, she posted about being a gun owner. She once updated her profile picture to a photo of six guns in a rack with the comment: “Think it’s time to take them out for some target practice.”

In a July 2021 post, she wrote that her followers should check out her son Jesse’s YouTube channel. “He posts about hunting, self reliance, guns and stuff he likes to do,” she said. “This is his way of sharing his life.”

YouTube had removed the channel by Wednesday, writing that it “was removed because it violated our Community Guidelines.”

What’s happening in Tumbler Ridge now?

Investigators are looking into every aspect of the case, including how Van Rootselaar got the guns despite her struggles with mental health.

While some families are mourning the loss of their loved ones, two surviving victims of the shooting are in critical condition and fighting for their lives, McDonald said.

The community of Tumbler Ridge, which has a population of about 2,400 people, is reeling and working together to support those immediately affected by the shootings. They left bouquets of flowers and stuffed animals outside the school, where one window displayed a rainbow flag and the message: “Everyone is welcome here.”

“I will know every victim … We’re a small community,” Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka told CBC News. “I don’t call them residents. I call them family.”

Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers breaking news, cold case investigations and the death penalty for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.