SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Tumbler Ridge: Ten people, including a suspected shooter, are dead after a shooting in the small town of Tumbler Ridge in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
Six people were found dead inside a high school, two more people were found dead at a property that police believe is connected to the incident, and another person died on the way to hospital, CBC News said, adding that the suspected shooter had been confirmed dead.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said more than 25 people were injured, including two in a life-threatening condition, after the shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.
RCMP Superintendent Ken Floyd told reporters that investigators had identified the shooter but would not release a name, and that the suspect’s motive remained unclear.
“We are not in a place to understand why or what may have motivated this tragedy,” Floyd said.
He added that police were still investigating how the victims were connected to the shooter.
Floyd said the suspected shooter, who was found dead at the school, was the same person described in the active shooter alert sent to phones in the area earlier today.
In that alert, police described the suspect as a woman in a dress with brown hair, CBC reported.
“As part of the initial response to the active shooting, police entered the school to locate the threat. During the search, officers located multiple victims. An individual believed to be the shooter was also found deceased with what appears to be a self‑inflicted injury,” the RCMP said in an earlier statement.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement on X: “I am devastated by today’s horrific shootings in Tumbler Ridge. My prayers and deepest condolences are with the families and friends who have lost loved ones to these horrific acts of violence.”
British Columbia Premier David Eby also offered his condolences on social media and pledged government support to the community in coming to terms with an “unimaginable tragedy”.
Larry Neufeld, the member of the legislature for Peace River South, said an “excess” of resources, including RCMP and ambulance support, have been sent to the community.
Tumbler Ridge, which has a population of about 2400 people, is more than 1000 kilometres north of Vancouver, near the border with Alberta. The provincial government website lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as having 175 students from grades 7 to 12.
School shootings are rare in Canada.
Canada’s government has responded to previous mass shootings with gun control measures, including a recently broadened ban on all guns it considers assault weapons.
In April 2020, a 51-year-old man disguised in a police uniform and driving a fake police car shot and killed 22 people in a 13-hour rampage in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia, before police killed him at a petrol station about 90 kilometres from the scene of his first killings.
In Canada’s worst school shooting, in December 1989, a gunman killed 14 female students and wounded 13 at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, before committing suicide.
