Search warrant applications detail grim scene RCMP faced at Tumbler Ridge school

Police tape surrounds Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in Tumbler Ridge on Feb. 11, 2026 in Tumbler Ridge. Photo by Greg Southam /Postmedia

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An 18-year-old suspected of killing five high-school students, a teacher and two family members in Tumbler Ridge, one of Canada’s worst mass shootings, was “obsessed with guns,” according to court documents filed by RCMP to obtain search warrants.

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New details about Jesse Van Rootselaar, the Feb. 10 shootings and its aftermath are contained in the search warrant application materials, also known as information-to-obtain, or ITO, records.

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The RCMP applied for the warrants to access Van Rootselaar’s family home and family vehicle, as well as several electronic devices seized from the residence.

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The hundreds of pages of documents that were released to the media this month were heavily redacted. In some cases, more than half of the information is blacked out.

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Some of the information redacted from the 11 documents, one as long as 110 pages, were the exact times on Feb. 10 that calls were made to police and the times that police responded to those calls. That makes it difficult to determine a timeline of the events that day.

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What the documents did reveal were details about the initial response by police and how one officer initially suspected there were two shooters that day at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.

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The documents also said “police were shot at by the suspect” when they arrived at the crime scene.

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RCMP applied for search warrants to access Jesse Van Rootselaar’s family home and family vehicle. Photo by HANDOUT /RCMP/AFP

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RCMP Sgt. Wahnese Antonioni-Stevens entered the school and “observed a young boy apparently deceased on the stairs with phone off to the side,” one document said.

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Other officers described coming across more of the victims, as well as blood and shell casings.
Most of the shooting occurred in the library, “where four victims were located deceased. Blood was observed in this area as well,” it said.

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“The suspect was observed with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

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The document, filed Feb. 11, also lays out what police knew about the suspect in the first 24 hours after the killings, including “that they were obsessed with guns.”

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Another document, submitted to court in March, included more details about what police were looking for with the search warrants and noted that the investigation indicated the suspect “had mental health problems and was fascinated by firearms.”

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The shootings in the northeastern B.C. town that shook its 2,500 citizens and the rest of the country left six dead at the school, including a 39-year-old teacher and five schoolchildren, all 12 and 13 years old., police have previously said. Two others, a 39-year-old woman and 11 year-old boy, were found dead in a residence.

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Another 27 students were injured, including Maya Gebala, whose parents were told she would likely not survive after being shot in the head, cheek and neck. But six months and five complex surgeries later, she has made remarkable progress, despite a severe brain injury, according to her family’s social media page.