TUMBLER RIDGE, British Columbia — The father of a 12-year-old victim of the mass shooting in a remote Canadian town tearfully recounted the desperate hours spent trying to learn what happened to her, only to find out from an older girl, not the authorities.
Lance Younge told CTV News on Wednesday that his son Ethan texted “I love you” shortly after 3 p.m. Tuesday and then called a short time later to say he was hiding in a utility room at his school in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, but that he didn't know where his sister Kylie was.
The family would find out hours later that Kylie Smith was one of the eight victims, mostly children, who were killed in attacks at the school and the home of the 18-year-old shooting suspect, who died from an apparent self-inflicted wound.
While looking for Kylie, Younge said he walked around the local recreation center where students were reuniting with their families for about six hours, but that police wouldn't tell him anything.
“I went home not knowing where my daughter was until a high school kid ... came here and told us her story about trying to save my daughter’s life," he said. "The police didn’t tell us anything. We had to find out through the community and through kids and rumors in the stands.”
The motive for Canada's deadliest attack in years remained unclear Thursday.
Mourners braved frigid cold Wednesday night to grieve the victims, with Mayor Darryl Krakowka telling them, “It’s OK to cry.”
Krakowka described the town as “one big family,” and encouraged people to reach out and support each other, especially the families of those who died in the attack. The community must support victims’ families “forever,” not only in the days and weeks to come, he said.
Jesse Van Rootselaar, whom investigators identified as the shooter, had a history of police visits to her home to check on her mental health, authorities said.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said Van Rootselaar first killed her mother and stepbrother at the family home before attacking the nearby school.
The town is near the provincial border with Alberta
The town of 2,700 people in the Canadian Rockies is more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Vancouver, near the provincial border with Alberta.
Police said the victims included a 39-year-old teacher and five students, ages 12 to 13.
The killings at the home occurred first, McDonald said. A young family member at the home went to a neighbor, who called police. The bodies of the suspect’s mother, who was also 39, and her 11-year-old stepbrother were found at the home.
At the school, one victim was found in a stairwell and the rest were found in the library, McDonald believed. The suspect was not related to any of the victims at the school, he said.
“There is no information at this point that anyone was specifically targeted,” McDonald said.
Police recovered a long gun and a modified handgun. McDonald said officers arrived at the school two minutes after the initial call. When they arrived, shots were fired in their direction.
“Parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers in Tumbler Ridge will wake up without someone they love. The nation mourns with you, and Canada stands by you,” an emotional Prime Minister Mark Carney said as he arrived in Parliament.
Deadliest rampage since 2020
The attack was Canada's deadliest rampage since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead.
Carney said flags at government buildings will be flown at half-staff for seven days and added: “We will get through this.”
Shelley Quist said her neighbor across the street lost her 12-year-old. “We heard his mom. She was in the street crying. She wanted her son’s body,” Quist said.
Quist said her 17-year-old son, Darian, was on lockdown in the school for more than two hours. The provincial government website lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as having 175 students in grades 7 to 12.
“The grade sevens and eights, I think, were upstairs in the library, and that’s where the shooter went,” she said. Her son was in the library just 15 minutes prior to the attack.
Quist was working at the hospital down the street when the shooting started.
“I was about to go run down to the school, but my coworker held me back. And then I was able to get Darian on the phone to know he was OK,” she said.
Darian Quist said he knew the attack was real when the principal came down the halls and ordered doors to be closed. He said fellow students texted him pictures of blood while he remained locked down in a classroom.
“We used the desk to block the doors,” he said.
School shootings are rare in Canada, which has strict gun-control laws. The government has responded to previous mass shootings with gun-control measures, including a recently broadened ban on all guns it considers assault weapons.