TORONTO: Ten people including the shooter are dead after an assailant opened fire at a high school in western Canada on Tuesday in one of the country’s deadliest mass casualty events in recent history.
The attack brought to Canada the type of mass shooting more common in the neighboring United States, and was carried out by a shooter described as female, police said.
Six people were found dead inside a high school in the town of Tumbler Ridge, in British Columbia, two more people were found dead at a residence believed to be connected to the incident, and another person died on the way to hospital, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.
At least two other people were hospitalized with serious or life-threatening wounds, and as many as 25 people were being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
Police did not say how many of the victims may have been minors. Parents gathered in a local community center as they waited to learn the fate of their children.
“It was a situation that you really never want to face again … the sight of what I saw was devastating, many parents just waiting for the news on whether their child had survived the shooting or not,” said local pastor George Rowe.
Police would only identify victims when they had “absolute, unequivocal identification,” he told CBC News on Wednesday.
SUSPECTED SHOOTER ALSO FOUND DEAD
A suspected shooter was also found dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted injury, police said, adding they did not believe there were any more suspects or ongoing threat.
“It’s hard to know what to say on a night like tonight. It’s the kind of thing that feels like it happens in other places and not close to home,” British Columbia Premier David Eby told reporters.
Police released almost no details about the shooter except to say the person was described as female – potentially an unusual development as mass shootings in North America are almost always carried out by men.
Darian Quist, a 17-year-old student at the school, said his class had been locked down for more than two hours starting at about 1.30 pm local time. Although he heard nothing, other pupils later shared photos of scenes where blood could be seen, he told CBC News.
A police active shooter alert said the suspect was described “as female in a dress with brown hair”. Police Superintendent Ken Floyd later confirmed that the suspect described in the alert was the same person found dead in the school.
“Tight-knit community”
Canada has stricter gun laws than the United States, but Canadians can own firearms with a license.
The Trudeau government introduced a number of restrictions on handgun ownership and assault-style weapons since 2020, partly in response to a mass shooting in Nova Scotia and the Uvalde school shooting in Texas.
However, attempts to ban certain types of rifles and shotguns were abandoned after opposition from farmers and hunters.
Tumbler Ridge, the scene of the shooting, is a remote municipality with a population of around 2,400 people in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in northern British Columbia, approximately 1,155 km (717 miles) northeast of Vancouver. Images of the town show a snow-covered landscape filled with pine trees.
Tumbler Ridge Secondary School has 160 students in grades seven through 12, roughly ages 12 to 18, according to its website. The school was closed for the rest of the week and counseling will be made available to those in need, school officials said.
Officials said the town’s small police force was on the scene within two minutes of receiving a call, and that victims were still being assessed hours after the incident.
“This is a small, tight-knit community with a small RCMP detachment as well, who responded in two minutes, no doubt saving lives today,” Nina Krieger, British Columbia’s public safety minister, told reporters.
The shooting ranks among the deadliest in Canadian history.
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