Washington resident conspired with Canadian school shooter before attack, officials say

SEATTLE (AP) — Federal authorities said Tuesday that they have arrested and charged a 30-year-old from Washington state with encouraging an 18-year-old to commit one of the worst school shootings in Canada's history by offering to livestream the February attack, providing money and sharing advice on how to delete online messages to keep the plot a secret.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Seattle said James Cody Bryant of Bellingham, Washington, communicated with Jesse Van Rootselaar in British Columbia for at least six months ahead of the shooting. Bryant, who identifies as female, did not report Van Rootselaar's plans to authorities, authorities allege.

“Without Bryant’s misplaced loyalty and willingness to operate the livestream, we don’t ultimately know if the shooter would have gone through with the crime,” said W. Mike Herrington, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Seattle office.

Authorities say Van Rootselaar first killed her mother and stepbrother at home before attacking a nearby school in the mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, killing five children ages 12 and 13 at the school as well as an educational assistant. Twenty-five others were wounded.

Van Rootselaar was later found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Bryant was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country — a “novel” charge for a case like this, said Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd during a press conference. It was not immediately known if Bryant had a lawyer. A court appearance was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

Communicating over Discord with Van Rootselaar, Bryant gave tactical advice on how to carry out the killings to have the strongest impact, according to the complaint.

“Hallways also mean a lot of ways people can escape,” Bryant wrote, the complaint said. “Corners to turn. Wide open spaces means numbers.”

Bryant also sent Van Rootselaar money to purchase a lighter that would be used to construct an explosive device and advised Van Rootselaar about how to keep the plot a secret by deleting online messages and using virtual private networks, officials said.

Bryant tried to talk Van Rootselaar out of committing the attack at various points, authorities said, but ultimately did not contact law enforcement and provided support for carrying out the shooting, authorities said.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said in Ottawa that the allegations were devastating.

“Nothing will bring back the eight lives that were devastated back in February, but it is important that those who are responsible are held to account," he told reporters.

Anandasangaree said it was too soon to say whether Bryant could also face charges in Canada, but added that Canadian prosecution would be possible if investigators determine Canadian laws were broken.

Bob Zimmer, the federal lawmaker who represents Tumbler Ridge, said the victims deserve answers.

“It is deeply troubling, the allegations that this individual coached the shooter all throughout the process in an effort to livestream the event,” Zimmer said.

Tumbler Ridge in the Canadian Rockies is more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Vancouver, British Columbia, near the provincial border with Alberta. The provincial government website lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as having 175 students from Grades 7 to 12.

The families of victims are suing artificial intelligence company OpenAI in U.S. federal court, seeking to hold the ChatGPT maker responsible for failing to alert police to the shooter’s alarming interactions with the chatbot.

The story and headline have been corrected to identify Bryant as a resident of Washington. Authorities say Bryant identifies as female.

Associated Press reporter Rob Gillies contributed to this report from Toronto.

In this photo taken with a smartphone, Mike Herrington, the FBI special agent in charge, speaks to the media while Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd, right, listens, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Manuel Valdes)

In this photo taken with a smartphone, Elija Rain, the assistant commissioner of the British Columbia Royal Canadian Mounted Police, speaks to the media on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in Seattle. Standing next to Rain are Mike Herrington, the FBI special agent in charge, left, and Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd, right. (AP Photo/Manuel Valdes)

In this photo taken with a smartphone, Mike Herrington, the FBI special agent in charge, speaks to the media on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in Seattle. Standing next to Herrington are Elija Rain, the assistant commissioner of the British Columbia Royal Canadian Mounted Police, left, and Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd, right. (AP Photo/Manuel Valdes)

FILE - People pay their respects at a memorial on the steps of the Town Hall, following a vigil the previous day, in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, Feb. 14, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

FILE - A mother and son pay their respects at a memorial for the victims of a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, Feb. 14, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A hearing for Kilmar Ábrego Garcia which was expected to determine whether the man mistakenly sent by the Trump administration to El Salvador would be deported to Liberia was abruptly canceled Tuesday for reasons that were not immediately clear.

The government is moving to vacate a preliminary injunction put in place by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis preventing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from detaining and deporting Ábrego Garcia to the West African country of Liberia. His legal team is seeking to make the injunction permanent. The judge left previous orders in place last December and ordered him released from custody.

Abrego Garcia was in the courtroom Tuesday but Judge Xinis never took the bench. Instead attorneys for both sides left the courtroom about five minutes before the hearing was supposed to begin. They held a 15-minute conference and then the hearing was canceled. No announcement was made in court as to why the hearing was canceled.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, a lawyer for Ábrego Garcia, told media outside the courthouse simply that the hearing could not happen Tuesday and that an update to the case would be posted on the court docket in the next few days. He shed no light as to why the hearing was cancelled.

“Unfortunately the court was unable to go forward today,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

The Salvadoran national’s case became a focal point in the immigration debate after he was mistakenly deported to his home country last year. Since his return, he has been fighting a second deportation to an African country as proposed by Department of Homeland Security officials.

Ábrego Garcia argued that if he were to be deported, it should be to Costa Rica, which had previously agreed to accept him. But Todd Lyons, the former acting director of ICE, said in a March 2026 memo that deporting Ábrego Garcia to Costa Rica would be “prejudicial to the United States," because the U.S. had expended resources and political capital negotiating with Liberia to accept third-country nationals.

The push for deportation to Liberia continued even after the U.S. signed an agreement with Costa Rica to accept deportees who cannot legally be returned to their home countries.

“The government is leading the same rodeo as many times before. Sending Kilmar to Costa Rica is on the table. However, the government continues to punish him for pursuing his constitutional rights and seeks to ship him to Liberia," said Jossie Flor Sapunar, the national communications director for We Are CASA, an activist group that has supported Ábrego Garcia and his family and intends to be at the courthouse. “Kilmar has become an international symbol of due process, a symbol which the Trump administration wants to silence.”

Supporters of Abrego Garcia gathered outside the courthouse in the Washington, D.C., suburbs Tuesday, some wearing green vests that said “CASA."

Nadine Seiler, 61, held a banner supporting Ábrego Garcia while a choir sang “We Shall Not be Moved.” Seiler said she immigrated from Trinidad nearly 39 years ago.

“I’m an immigrant. I have come to represent for my immigrant community," said Seiler. She said Abrego Garcia said months ago that he was willing to leave the country, but the government hasn't agreed. “It’s not about policy. It’s about cruelty.”

She added in an email that the family deserves privacy, either at home in Maryland or in Costa Rica.

Ábrego Garcia, 31, has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. In 2019, an immigration judge ruled that he could not be deported to El Salvador because he faced danger there from a gang that had threatened his family.

He was arrested in Baltimore in March 2025 after picking up his then-5-year-old son, who has autism and other disabilities, from his grandmother’s house, according to court papers.

Ábrego Garcia was then sent to a mega-prison in El Salvador known as CECOT, which activists say is rife with abuses and where inmates are packed into cells and never allowed outside. ICE officials admitted in court filings that his deportation there was an “administrative error.”

Facing public pressure and a court order, President Donald Trump's Republican administration brought him back in June 2025, but only after securing an indictment charging him with human smuggling in Tennessee. A federal judge dismissed that case in May 2026, finding that the Justice Department’s pursuit of criminal charges was designed to punish Ábrego Garcia for challenging his deportation. The government is appealing.

Santana reported from Washington.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, center, arrives with his supporters at the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, in Greenbelt, Md., for a hearing in the immigration-related case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, center, arrives arrive with his supporters at the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, in Greenbelt, Md., for a hearing in the immigration-related case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, center, arrives with his supporters at the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, in Greenbelt, Md., for a hearing in the immigration-related case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

FILE - Kilmar Abrego Garcia, center, arrives at the federal courthouse Feb. 26, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)