A shooting at a high school in the small community of Tumbler Ridge, in the Canadian province of British Columbia, left at least nine dead and 27 injured on Tuesday (10), causing national commotion and immediate mobilization of the authorities. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) reported that it has already identified the person responsible for the attack, found dead at the scene with injuries described as apparently self-inflicted. The identity, however, was not released.
According to Superintendent Ken Floyd of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the suspect matches the description released in an emergency alert issued during the incident, which cited “a woman with brown hair wearing a dress,” although there is still no official confirmation of her gender. According to the report, local residents identified the person as an 18-year-old woman, as reported by the Canadian newspaper Western Standard.
The alleged identification was confirmed to the publication by former schoolmates, including Liam Irving and Juan van Heerden. They stated that they had spoken with eight people who were inside the institution at the time of the attack, reinforcing the impact of the incident among students and residents of the region.
Irving described the young woman as “a quiet person,” a few years younger and with no known history of aggression. Van Heerden also reported that she tended to keep to herself. Both told the Western Standard that the young woman identified as transgender.
In addition to the attack inside the school, reports attributed to former classmates indicate that, before arriving at the institution, she allegedly killed her own mother and younger brother—both well-known in the community. This information further increased the local shock, given the scale of the violence recorded in a small municipality.
The first alerts about the attack began circulating around 1:20 PM, prompting the RCMP to issue a public warning and deploy teams to the school. However, the rapid mobilization of security forces did not prevent the attack from leaving a high number of victims.
The incident is already considered the third deadliest attack in Canadian history, behind only the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989 and the attacks in Nova Scotia in 2020.
Canadian political authorities expressed solidarity with the families of the victims and the community of Tumbler Ridge. The Premier of British Columbia, David Eby, stated that the provincial government would offer all necessary support to the affected residents. Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was devastated by the attack and cancelled a planned international trip following the tragedy.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre also lamented the incident and offered condolences to the affected families, while emergency teams continue to work to assist the injured and provide psychological support to students and residents of the region.
Source: brasil247.com