Prime Minister Carney and Canada's main opposition leader hold hands during school shooting vigil

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the country’s main opposition leader held hands Friday as they paid tribute to the victims of one of the worst mass shootings in the country’s history at a vigil in a devastated British Columbia town.

Carney and Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre joined hands as an Indigenous leader sang a prayer outside the town hall in Tumbler Ridge.

Carney and Poilievre also spoke. The prime minister named each of the six people killed at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and said the mother and brother of the shooter who were killed also “deserve to be mourned.”

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 home on Tuesday before heading to the nearby Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and opening fire, killing five children and an educator before killing herself.

Carney said he sat with people who are “living through something no one should ever have to endure.”

“When you wake up tomorrow, and the world feels impossible, know that millions of Canadians are with you. When the cameras leave and the quiet sets in — know that we will still be here,” Carney said.

A crowd of hundreds attended the vigil. Some held photos of loved ones they lost.

Carney said the community has always been defined by people caring for each other.

“And when the unimaginable happened on Tuesday, you were there again. First responders at the school within two minutes. Teachers shielding their children,” he said.

Poilievre commended Carney for his “tremendous grace.” Canada’s political leaders flew from Ottawa together.

British Columbia Premier David Eby said the students of the school won’t ever have to return to the building if they don’t want to.

“I will promise that not one of you will ever be forced to go back to that school. We will provide a safe place for you to go back to school,” Eby said.

Authorities on Thursday identified those killed at the school as Kylie Smith, 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.

Maya Gebala, 12, who was wounded in the head and neck, and Paige Hoekstra, 19, who also suffered bullet wounds, remain hospitalized in Vancouver.

Dwayne McDonald, the deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, said earlier Friday that the alleged shooter did not appear to be searching for a specific target at the school.

“This suspect was, for lack of a better term, hunting,” McDonald said. “They were prepared and engaging anybody and everybody they could come in contact with.”

McDonald described a “chaotic” scene at the school when police arrived, with fire alarms sounding and a person yelling out a window that the suspect was upstairs.

“They entered the school, proceeded to go up the stairwell, and were met with gunfire,” he said. “It was a matter of seconds after that there was more gunfire, not as we know now, having reviewed video, directed at any persons. Then the suspect took their life.”

McDonald said from the time the suspect encountered police there were no further injuries to students at the school.

Four guns were seized, two from the family home and two from the school, he said.

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.

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney and his wife Diana Fox Carney place flowers at a memorial for the victims of a mass shooting, in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)

People hold photos of victims to a vigil for the victims of a mass shooting, in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)

People bring flowers and stuffed animal to a vigil for the victims of a mass shooting, in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)

People comfort each other at a vigil for the victims of a mass shooting, in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)

From left to right, Leader of the Official Opposition of Canada Pierre Poilievre, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Governor General of Canada, Mary Simon join hands while attending a vigil for the victims of a mass shooting, in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Multiple residents of an affordable housing complex in Portland, Oregon, have bought gas masks to wear in their own homes to protect themselves from tear gas fired by federal agents outside the immigration building across the street. Others have taped their windows or stuffed wet towels under their doors, while children have sought security by sleeping in closets.

Some told their stories to a federal judge Friday, as they testified in a lawsuit seeking to limit federal officers' use of tear gas during protests at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building following months of repeated exposure.

The property manager of the apartment building and several tenants filed the suit against the federal government in December, arguing that the use of chemical munitions has violated residents' rights to life, liberty and property by sickening them, contaminating their apartments and confining them inside. They have asked the court to limit federal agents' use of such munitions unless needed to respond to an imminent threat.

“They’re simply trying to live their lives in peace in their homes," Daniel Jacobson, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said during the hearing. "Yet our federal government is knowingly putting them through hell, and for no good reason at all.”

The defendants, which include ICE and the Department of Homeland Security and their respective heads, say officers have deployed crowd-control devices in response to violent protests at the building, which has been the site of demonstrations for months.

"The conduct at issue, law enforcement’s use of crowd-control tactics to disperse unlawful crowds, does not even come close to shocking the conscience," Samuel Holt, an attorney for the federal government, said during the hearing.

The case comes amid growing concern over federal officers using aggressive crowd-control tactics, as cities across the country have seen demonstrations against the immigration enforcement surge spearheaded by President Donald Trump's administration.

In testimony, tenants of the Gray's Landing apartment complex described experiencing difficulty breathing, coughing, dizziness and other symptoms following exposure to chemicals from tear gas, smoke grenades and pepper balls. Gas canisters have hit apartments and been found in the building’s courtyard and parking garage, plaintiffs said.

A resident who used a pseudonym in court filings due to being a domestic violence survivor said she has a gas mask in her bedroom, in her living room and in her backpack, and that she has slept with one on. She described how the gas entered her apartment and triggered her post-traumatic stress: ”I could feel it, I could see it, I could taste it, I could smell it."

Erica del Nigro, another resident, said the chemicals have triggered her autoimmune syndrome and that her 12-year-old son has had hives, rashes and nightmares. Doctors have prescribed him multiple medications, including an inhaler, which he didn't need before the gassing began, she testified.

Diane Moreno, who said she has slept in her bathtub to avoid the chemicals seeping inside, said she has to have one of her adrenal glands removed due to the stressful environment exacerbating a disease that causes her to overproduce cortisol. “Not feeling safe and happy in your own home is a big stressor," she testified.

Other plaintiffs include a 72-year-old Air Force veteran who has been diagnosed with shortness of breath and mild heart failure, and a father who has taken his 7- and 9-year-old daughters to urgent care for respiratory symptoms. The girls sometimes sleep in his closet to feel safe, according to the complaint.

During the hearing, attorneys for the federal government questioned whether residents were trained in assessing imminent threats or unlawful behavior, and whether they were close enough to incidents to directly observe why officers may have deployed munitions.

The plaintiffs filed an updated request for a preliminary injunction limiting federal officers' use of tear gas late last month, after agents launched gas at a crowd of demonstrators including young children that local officials described as peaceful.

Of the affordable housing complex’s 237 residents, nearly a third are age 63 or older, according to court filings. Twenty percent of units are reserved for low-income veterans and 16% of tenants identify as disabled.

The government said in court filings that federal officers have at times used crowd control devices in response to crowds that are “violent, obstructive or trespassing" or do not comply with dispersal orders.

It has also pushed back against the claims of tenants' constitutional rights being violated, saying that under such an argument, “federal and state law enforcement officers would violate the Constitution whenever they deploy airborne crowd-control devices that inadvertently drift into someone's home or business, even if the use of such devices is otherwise entirely lawful.”

The hearing will resume next week. It came after a federal judge in a separate Oregon lawsuit, filed by the ACLU of Oregon on behalf of protesters and freelance journalists, temporarily restricted agents' use of tear gas during protests at the building.

FILE - Law enforcement officers stand in the street to allow vehicles to leave a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility during a protest in Portland, Ore., Oct. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)

FILE - A view of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, top left, in Portland, Ore., Oct. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)

Federal agents lobbed tear gas and flash bangs at protesters in front of the ICE building on Jan. 31, 2026, in Portland, Ore. (Allison Barr/The Oregonian via AP)