Author: Ismail Shakir and Ryan Patrick Jones
Feb 10 (Reuters) – A woman shot herself and then herself at a high school in western Canada on Tuesday, killing 10 people including the gunman, police said.
The outbreak was one of the deadliest mass casualty incidents in the country’s recent history, giving Canada a taste of mass shootings more common in neighboring the United States.
Six people were found dead at a high school in Tableau Ridge, British Columbia, and two others were found dead at a residence believed to be involved in the incident, RCMP said. Another person died on the way to hospital.
At least two other people were taken to hospital with serious or life-threatening injuries, and as many as 25 people were being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
A suspected shooter was also found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said, adding they did not believe there were more suspects or an ongoing threat to the public.
Police said the shooter was a woman – an unusual phenomenon since mass shootings in North America are almost always carried out by men.
A police shooting alert said the suspect was described as a “female with brown hair wearing a skirt.” Police Chief Ken Floyd later confirmed at a news conference that the suspect described in the alert was the same person found dead at the school. Police did not say how many of the victims may be minors.
One of Canada’s deadliest mass casualty events
Tumbler Ridge is a remote municipality with a population of approximately 2,400 people located in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in northern British Columbia, approximately 1,155 kilometers (717 miles) northeast of Vancouver. Images of the town show a snow-covered landscape filled with pine trees.
“When police entered the scene, there were multiple injuries and multiple fatalities within the school,” Floyd told reporters.
“We are still triaging the other victims and I don’t have an update on whether that number will go up,” Floyd said. “It was very dramatic and there are multiple victims who are still receiving treatment.”
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement: “I am horrified by today’s horrific shooting in Tableau Ridge, British Columbia, and my prayers and deepest condolences are with the families and friends who have lost loved ones to these horrific acts of violence.”
In April 2020, a 51-year-old man disguised himself and drove a fake police car and shot and killed 22 people during a 13-hour riot in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia before police shot him dead at a gas station about 90 kilometers (60 miles) from the site of his first killing.
In December 1989, in Canada’s worst school shooting, a gunman killed 14 female students and wounded 13 others at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, before committing suicide.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakir in Ottawa and Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Michael Perry and Don Duffy)
