Remote community grieves the 8 killed in Canada's deadliest attack in years

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — The families of victims of a shooting in a remote Canadian Rockies town grappled with unrelenting grief Thursday as details emerged about those killed in the country's deadliest mass shooting in years.

Authorities said the 18-year-old alleged shooter, identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, killed her 39-year-old mother, Jennifer Jacobs, and 11-year-old stepbrother, Emmett Jacobs, in their northern British Columbia home on Tuesday before heading to the nearby Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and opening fire, killing five children and an educator before killing herself.

Twenty-five people were also injured in the attack. The motive remains unclear.

Among the dead was 12-year-old Kylie Smith, whose family remembered her as "the light in our family.”

“She loved her family, friends, and going to school," Kylie's family said in a statement. “She was a talented artist and had dreams of going to art school in the big city of Toronto. Rest in paradise, sweet girl, our family will never be the same without you.”

Kylie's father tearfully recounted the desperate hours spent trying to learn what happened to his daughter, only to find out from an older girl, not the authorities.

Lance Younge told CTV News 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, but that he didn't know where his sister Kylie was.

The family would find out hours later that Kylie was among the dead.

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.”

Authorities on Thursday identified the other victims as Abel Mwansa, Zoey Benoit and Ticaria Lampert, all age 12, as well as 13-year-old Ezekiel Schofield and assistant teacher Shannda Aviugana-Durand, 39.

In a statement, Zoey's family described her as “resilient, vibrant, smart, caring and the strongest little girl you could meet."

Peter Schofield, whose grandson, Ezekiel, was killed, shared his grief in a Facebook post, saying: “Everything feels so surreal. The tears just keep flowing.”

Trent Ernst, publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines, the town's biweekly newspaper, said he has been “randomly breaking down and weeping at inopportune times, usually when talking to people about what is happening.”

He said he knows Maya Gebala, 12, who was wounded in the head and neck, and Paige Hoekstra, 19, who also suffered bullet wounds. Both were hospitalized in Vancouver.

He said he spoke with Maya at a recent town winter carnival, describing her as “funky and vivacious” and “full of life.”

Ernst said one of the biggest frustrations in the community is the lack of medical support and in particular mental health services. Rootselaar had a history of police visits to her home to check on her mental health, authorities said.

“The majority of people that I’ve talked to are sad more at the fact that Tumbler Ridge doesn’t have the level of support for mental health and health services in general," he said.

“If this had happened three hours later, our clinic would have been closed and there would be no emergency room there," he said, adding that it would likely have reopened under such exceptional circumstances.

In particular, Ernst said there's a severe lack of mental health services in the Canadian Rockies town, which has roughly 2,700 residents and is more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Vancouver, near the provincial border with Alberta.

“Right now, there are five mental health nurses in town. But this is the exception, and it’s an exceptional situation. There are times where we’ll go months, if not years, without having anybody in mental health services in town,” he said.

Rootselaar and her family led a “nomadic lifestyle” marked by multiple moves between at least three Canadian provinces, according to a 2015 British Columbia court ruling.

The court's decision in a dispute between the alleged shooter’s parents described her mother, Jennifer Jacobs, moving with her children between Newfoundland, Grand Cache in Alberta and Powell River, British Columbia, in the previous five years.

Her mother, also known as Jennifer Strang, was found to have engaged in “reprehensible conduct” by failing to give her children’s father enough notice that she was moving back to Newfoundland in August 2015.

Jacobs was ordered in the court ruling to return their children to British Columbia.

Mourners braved frigid cold Wednesday night to honor 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.

Police recovered a long gun and a modified handgun at the school that they said Rootselaar used in the attack.

Dwayne McDonald, deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, said Wednesday there was no information that anyone at the school was targeted. He said officers arrived at the school two minutes after the initial call and that shots were fired in their direction when they showed up.

“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 Wednesday as he arrived in Parliament.

Carney, who said flags at government buildings will be flown at half-staff for seven days, planned to visit Tumbler Ridge on Friday.

The attack was Canada’s deadliest since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead.

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.

Gillies reported from Toronto. Associated Press reporter R.J. Rico in Atlanta contributed.

This undated photo provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shows Emmett Jacobs, who was killed in a mass shooting, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police via AP)

This undated photo provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shows Zoey Benoit, who was killed in a school shooting, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police via AP)

This undated photo provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shows Kylie Smith, who was killed in a school shooting, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police via AP)

This undated photo provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shows Abel Mwansa, who was killed in a school shooting, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police via AP)

This undated photo provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shows Ezekiel Schofield, who was killed in a school shooting, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police via AP)

Speaker of the B.C. Legislative Assembly Raj Chouhan speaks at a candle light vigil at the front steps of the legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026 in honour of the victims of the school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. (Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press via AP)

People console one another during a candle light vigil at the front steps of the legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026 in honor of the victims of the school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. (Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press via AP)

A welcome sign is seen entering the town of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)

Police tape surrounds a school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, after Tuesday's mass shooting. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)

Residents hug as they place flowers at a memorial for the victims of Tuesday's mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)

SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — A former guitarist for Grammy-winning Baltimore hardcore band Turnstile has been charged with attempted murder after authorities say he chased down and struck a former bandmate's father with his car, badly injuring him.

Montgomery County police officers responding to a Sunday report about a pedestrian being struck in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Silver Spring found William Yates, the 79-year-old father of lead singer Brendan Yates, injured in a front yard, according to charging documents.

Yates' family said guitarist Brady Ebert, a neighbor who parted ways with the band several years ago, had struck him with a car, police wrote. Yates’ daughter, Erin Gerber, told authorities that she and her husband were getting their kids out of their car when Ebert drove up honking at them and yelling obscenities, then drove into her father.

In video footage obtained from a neighbor, Ebert could be seen driving a gold Buick LeSabre and swerving toward William Yates but missing him, according to the charging documents. Yates then threw a rock at Ebert’s vehicle and Gerber dragged her 3-year-old son onto the lawn to avoid being hit. Ebert then turned sharply into Yates' driveway and struck him as he was trying to run away, investigators wrote. Ebert finally drove across the lawn and left.

Yates told a detective that as he was injured on the ground, Ebert returned and yelled that he “deserved it” before driving off again, according to charging documents.

Yates said Ebert used to be in a band with his son and had been causing problems for his family since being kicked out. He said Ebert had been taunting them for long time, but that his behavior had been escalating.

Ebert, 33, was arrested Tuesday and charged with attempted second-degree murder and first-degree assault, court records show.

During a bond hearing Thursday in which he appeared via video, Ebert called William Yates a “maniac” who threw a rock at him asked the judge to watch the surveillance footage, saying it would “contradict” the authorities' narrative of what happened, The Baltimore Banner reported.

But prosecutor Dominic Plantamura said the footage shows it was a “clearly targeted attack” and that Yates is lucky he wasn't injured more seriously.

Ebert's lawyer, John Costello, acknowledged Ebert’s contentious history with his former bandmate, but said, “That does not, in this instance, warrant extra detention.” Costello’s office declined to comment to The Associated Press.

The judge ordered Ebert held without bond.

According to Plantamura, William Yates was injured so badly that a bone stuck out of one leg.

In a statement, Turnstile said it cut ties with Ebert in 2022, “in response to a consistent pattern of harmful behavior." It said a boundary had to be set after he began threatening violence. While Ebert’s “baseless tirades” continued in public since then, the band said it didn’t address them to protect his privacy. Threats escalated in recent months and then there was a physical attack on Brendan Yates’ father this week, the band wrote.

“We are grateful that Mr. Yates survived, has successfully undergone surgery, and we’re hoping for the best possible outcome in his recovery,” the band said. “We have no language left for Brady.”

Turnstile were underground stalwarts until their 2021 album “Glow On” launched them into mainstream consciousness. They cemented their status this year by winning Grammys for Best Rock Album and Best Metal Performance.

FILE - Turnstile's guitarist Brady Ebert performs at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club, Friday, April 19, 2019, in Indio, Calif. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP)