Canadian police say 10 dead in British Columbia school shooting
Canadian police say 10 dead in British Columbia school shooting
A mass shooting at a high in the Canadian province of British Columbia has left at least nine people dead, including the suspected attacker, according to police.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a statement on Tuesday that six people were found dead in the secondary school in the small town of Tumbler Ridge, while another person died on the way to hospital.
Two other people were found dead at a home that police believe is connected to the shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.
Police did not say how many of the victims may have been minors.
“‘We will get through this. We will learn from this,” Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters in emotional remarks on Wednesday.
“But right now, it’s a time to come together, as Canadians always do in these situations, these terrible situations, to support each other, to mourn together and to grow together.”
Carney has cancelled a planned trip to the Munich Security Conference in Germany to remain in the country and said that Canada’s federal public safety minister is being sent to the scene of the shooting.
The RCMP said the incident involved an “active shooter at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School” in British Columbia, and that “an individual believed to be the shooter was also found deceased with what appears to be a self‑inflicted injury”. Police described the suspect in an initial emergency alert as a “female in a dress with brown hair”.
Two people were “airlifted to hospital with serious or life‑threatening injuries”, and some 25 others were “being assessed and triaged at the local medical centre for non‑life‑threatening injuries”, the RCMP added.
All remaining students and staff were safely evacuated from the school, police said.
RCMP Northern District commander Ken Floyd told reporters that investigators had identified a female suspect but would not release a name. A public alert described the shooter as a female in a dress with brown hair
Police also remain tight-lipped about the age of the victims and the weapons used in the attack, citing privacy concerns and an ongoing investigation by the RCMP’s Major Crimes Unit.
Darian Quist, a grade 12 student at the school, told Canada’s CBC Radio West that he and other students “got tables and barricaded the doors” for over two hours during the mass shooting.
“The reality of it all is starting to set in,” he said. “I believe I knew somebody, but everything is still very fresh” he added, describing the attack as “almost surreal”.
Quist said that the school was small with only about 20 students in his year level.
