Disturbing online hints about the life of the teenager who carried out the Tumbler Ridge school shooting are coming into focus as investigators in British Columbia search for what drove an attack that killed nine people, including the suspect.
The evidence includes the creation of a playable mass-shooting simulator inside a controversial online community, as well as a trail of other accounts that described gun use and mental health struggles, according to multiple outlets that reviewed archived material and platform takedowns.
The Tumbler Ridge school shooter created an online mass shooting simulator
Image credits: RCMP
Police say the violence in the remote community pof Tumbler Ridge on Tuesday began at a home, where the school shooting suspect is believed to have killed her mother and 11-year-old stepbrother before going to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School. Six people were killed at the school, and the suspect later died from what police described as an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Authorities initially reported the attack being carried out by “a female in a dress” before the suspect was identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, a transgender woman who had identified as female for around six years.
According to technology outlet 404 Media, Van Rootselaar built a simulation of a mass shooting in a mall-like setting inside controversial online game Roblox. The makers of the game told 404 Media that the user account “and any content associated with the suspect” had been taken down.
Roblox in an online multiplayer community game that allows users to interact and build playable areas and activities. It is rated 13+ by the Entertainment Software Rating Board because it can expose users to a wide range of user-generated content.
Image credits: Oberon Copeland/Unsplash
However, it is widely played by pre-teens, and the makers of the game have come in for heavy criticism over the ease with which children are exposed to inappropriate content, groomed by predators, and encouraged to self-harm.
Elsewhere online Van Rootselaar was found to have engaged in other activity revolving around violence, including maintaining a YouTube channel that hosted videos about hunting and firearms. Meanwhile, a Reddit account with a matching username posted messages describing mental health problems, drug use, and psychiatric support.
The Tumbler Ridge school shooter had written online about mental health struggles
The online material has spread quickly since the shootings, with screenshots and archive links circulating across platforms and prompting questions about whether any warning signs were missed. Police have urged the public to avoid speculation while investigators work to establish a motive and a timeline and also cautioned against turning the case into a proxy fight over gender identity.
Gun Violence Archive data shows transgender perpetrators make up a tiny fraction of mass shootings in the U.S., while research from UCLA’s Williams Institute finds transgender people experience violent victimization at more than four times the rate of cisgender people.
On Thursday, RCMP publicly confirmed the names of those killed sat the school two days earlier, including four children aged 12, one aged 13, and 39-year-old educator Shannda Aviugana-Durand.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney traveled to Tumbler Ridge on Friday alongside opposition leaders to attend a vigil, as residents in the small mountain town struggled to process one of the country’s worst mass shootings in modern times, and families asked for privacy as the investigation continues.
Police have said it is too early to draw conclusions from online material alone, and they have not said what role, if any, the Roblox simulator or social-media posts played in the attack. Investigators have asked anyone with relevant information to contact police rather than sharing graphic content online.
