‘I will know every victim,’ says mayor of close-knit Tumbler Ridge.

PinnedUpdated Here’s the latest.Canada was reeling on Wednesday, a day after a shooter killed nine people and injured 25 others in a remote town in northeastern British Columbia, the third-deadliest shooting in the country’s history that comes amid a wider debate about gun control.Seven people were found dead in Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, including a person believed to be the shooter, who died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted injury, according to Superintendent Ken Floyd of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Two other people were found dead in a local residence that the police believed to be connected to the shooting.Another person died while being transported from the school to the hospital, and 25 people suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, the police said in a statement.Mass killings are rare in Canada, but the attack in Tumbler Ridge, population 2,400, was the second deadly incident in British Columbia in less than a year after a man drove a car into a crowd last April.In 2020 in response to the worst mass shooting in Canadian history — when a rampage by a man disguised as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer left 23 people dead — the federal government took a number of steps to overhaul the gun laws. Among the measures was a ban on 1,500 types of assault-style weapons that was later widened to include freezing handgun sales and expanding the list of banned firearms.A national gun buyback program for military-style assault rifles was also included, which has proved politically divisive and logistically challenging. There are roughly 1.3 million registered firearms in Canada, according to police data.The police have not released the shooter’s identity, details about the firearms used or how they were obtained. Superintendent Floyd said the suspected shooter found dead in the school was the same person mentioned in a police alert at around 1:20 p.m., which described the person as a “female in a dress with brown hair.”The police have not identified the victims or provided their ages, as officers were still notifying their families, Premier David Eby of British Columbia said in a news briefing. Students hid for hours inside the school while the shooting unfolded.Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said in a social media post that he was “devastated” by the shooting. Mr. Carney’s office said he would suspend plans to travel on Wednesday to the Munich Security Conference in Germany.Fewer than 200 students are enrolled at the secondary school, according to the websites for the school district and provincial government.The secondary school, the town’s elementary school and a local college were all closed for the rest of the week.Here’s what else to know:Remote community: Tumbler Ridge was originally established as a coal-mining town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, according to the town’s website.Rare attack: In 1989, a gunman in Montreal killed 14 women at a university, and in 2020, 22 people were killed in the eastern province of Nova Scotia. Last year, a man killed 11 people after he drove a van into a crowd at a festival in Vancouver.Rylee Kirk and Pranav Baskar contributed reporting.ImageA video grab handout showing students exiting a school in Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia, Canada, following the shooting on Tuesday.Credit...Jordon Kosik, via Associated PressThe mayor of Tumbler Ridge, a remote community in British Columbia where a mass shooting on Tuesday left 10 people, including the suspected shooter, dead, vowed that residents of the close-knit town would support each other following one of the deadliest such attacks in Canadian history.“I will know every victim,” Mayor Darryl Krakowka told the CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster after sheltering in the town hall.“We’re a small community,” he told the broadcaster. “I don’t call them residents. I call them family.”Seven people were found dead in Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, including a person believed to be the shooter, the police said, and another died while being transported to the hospital. Two other people were found dead in a local residence that the police believe is connected to the shooting.Chris Norbury, a town councilor, said that he worried that he had lost a relative as news of the shooting in the town of 2,400 broke.“Like many in our community, I felt the fear, the kind that sits in your heart and soul that doesn’t let go. The fear that I lost a loved one,” he said on social media. “It is something none of us should ever have to experience.”Mr. Norbury paid tribute to the teachers, students and emergency medical workers “who had to live through such a terrifying experience.”ImageCredit...The New York TimesStudents and teachers hid in Tumbler Ridge Secondary School for hours during the shooting.ImageJarbas Noronha, a shop teacher, outside Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in 2024. He hid with 15 students behind locked doors on Tuesday.Credit...Jarbas NoronhaJarbas Noronha was teaching his 12th grade auto mechanic shop class at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School to change oil on Tuesday afternoon. Students with good attendance are sometimes allowed to work on their own vehicles, and one student went to the parking lot to fetch his car.He instead came back saying he heard gunshots outside, Mr. Noronha said. About two minutes later, the school’s principal, Stacie Gruntman, came to the door of the shop, shouting “Lockdown!”The shop is far from the school’s main entrance and the principal’s office. Mr. Noronha said he and 15 students locked the hallway door and the two garage doors that opened into the school yard. Two metal benches were used as barricades.“We were in the safest part of the school,” he said in a phone interview. “If someone tried to break in through the hallway door, we would run to the yard through the garage doors.”Mr. Noronha said he kept his eye on a large wall clock in the shop. His class stayed in the garage for more than two hours until police officers knocked on the garage door and escorted them to the school’s recreational center.It was not until Mr. Noronha reached his home around 7 p.m. that he learned of the extent of the violence. It was the third deadliest shooting in Canada’s history. Seven people were found dead in the school, including the suspected shooter, according to the authorities. Two other people were found dead in a local residence and another person died while being transported to a hospital, the police said.The shooting has shaken the residents of Tumbler Ridge, a remote town of 2,400 people in northeastern British Columbia. Mr. Noronha said he has taught auto mechanic and wood shop at the high school for two years, after moving there from his native Brazil in 2022 to be with his wife, a Tumbler Ridge resident.“This is a hunting town. Everyone has guns here,” he said.The police have not provided the identities of the suspected shooter and the victims, and they have also not commented on the shooter’s motive. Officers were still notifying the victims’ families, Premier David Eby of British Columbia said in a news briefing on Tuesday night.Students and staff were held in the recreational center as the authorities conducted a head count, Mr. Noronha said. A shelter-in-place order for the town was lifted at 6:47 p.m. and parents were allowed to pick up their children.The school district has closed both Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and Tumbler Ridge Elementary School for the rest of the week. Provincial authorities said trauma counselors would be sent to the town to support the community.“I’m quite calm, but I still don’t know how many students were hurt,” Mr. Noronha said. He added that Ms. Gruntman, the principal, told teachers they would be notified by email when the school would reopen.“I don’t think many students are in a condition to go back now,” he said.Canada launched major gun reforms in 2020 after its deadliest mass shooting.ImageA makeshift memorial in Portapique, Nova Scotia, for the victims of Canada’s deadliest mass shooting in 2020.Credit...Tim Krochak/ReutersThe fatal shootings in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on Tuesday came as Canada’s federal government faces hurdles in a national gun buyback program that has proved politically unpopular and a logistical quagmire.The country’s deadliest mass shooting, in Nova Scotia, precipitated the creation of the program after 23 people, including the attacker, died in April 2020.Days after that attack, Justin Trudeau, the prime minister at the time, announced a ban on 1,500 types of assault-style weapons. In the subsequent years, the federal government has gradually widened its gun reform project, announcing a freeze on handgun sales and expanding the list of firearms covered under the initial ban.The police have not released any information about the firearms used in the Tumbler Ridge shootings on Tuesday, or how the suspected shooter came to obtain them.By far the most contentious part of Canada’s firearms reform has been a multimillion-dollar gun buyback program targeting owners of “military-style assault rifles,” which include a wide range of long guns and rifles, like those used to hunt animals.The gun buyback has been a politically divisive issue in Canada, where firearm ownership is already strictly regulated.Handguns are the most common type of firearm used in crimes, according to federal data. In cities with higher rates of gun violence, the vast majority of firearms linked to crimes are traced back to the United States.Gun owners and lobby groups have criticized the buyback for putting an undue emphasis on rifles, which are an essential part of life in many rural areas. They are common on Indigenous reserves where the hunting of animals like caribou and moose is an important source of food and community engagement.Some of the critics come from within Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government. Gary Anandasangaree, Canada’s public safety minister, was heard in September last year criticizing the program in a leaked audio recording, in which he said the police do not have enough resources to enforce the buyback.Several police forces and the national postal service have refused to participate in collecting firearms under the buyback, citing either safety concerns or staffing constraints.There are roughly 1.3 million registered firearms in Canada, according to federal police data.When asked about the limited capacity at Tumbler Ridge’s local medical center, where the 25 injured people were assessed, David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, acknowledged that it was a “small center.” Eby said that Alberta, the neighboring province, offered to provide medical services, including air ambulance, but did not say whether they were used.ImageCredit...CTV NewsTumbler Ridge is a small, remote town surrounded by wilderness.ImageA screenshot from a video showing the school building where a shooting took place in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on Tuesday.Credit...Trent Ernst/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTumbler Ridge, the remote British Columbia town where a shooter killed 9 people on Tuesday at a school and residence before dying of a self-inflicted injury, has a population of about 2,400 people and lies near the border with Alberta.The town sits at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, in the province’s northeast, and is surrounded by expansive mountain ranges and a geological park recognized by UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency. It is so remote that cellphone service cuts out about 30 seconds into a car ride out of town, said Danielle Roscher, the owner of a local outdoor tour company.Against that backdrop, the attacks that unfolded on Tuesday are even more unsettling, she said. “It just doesn’t even seem real.”Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, where the shooting occurred, has 160 to 175 students, according to the websites for the school district and provincial government. Because of the school’s small size, there is a “tremendous sense of community” between staff and students, the district’s website said.In addition to the secondary school, the town has just one elementary school and one college, according to the town’s official website.Tumbler Ridge was once a mining hub, home to two major mines that shut down in 2000 and 2003. Later, officials began a marketing campaign encouraging people to relocate to Tumbler Ridge for its affordable housing and proximity to nature. Now, the town is known for its outdoor tourism.Most of the province of British Columbia is policed by federal officers because rural towns like Tumbler Ridge are not populous enough to have their own municipal police forces.Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office said he would postpone an announcement and planned travel this week because of the shooting in British Columbia. Carney was scheduled to travel to Germany on Wednesday to attend the Munich Security Conference.Shawna RicherThe shooting in Tumbler Ridge is the third deadliest mass shooting in Canada, along with a 1996 shooting in Vernon, British Columbia, that resulted in 10 deaths. The only deadlier shootings include one in 1989, when a gunman entered an engineering class at Montreal’s École Polytechnique, killing 14 women. The suspect, Marc Lépine, killed himself. In 2020, Gabriel Wortman killed 22 people across northern Nova Scotia before he was shot and killed by police.ImageCredit...John Morris/ReutersThe Tumbler Ridge Health Center, where the 25 injured were assessed, was placed on restricted access and advised people to delay any nonurgent visits earlier on Tuesday because of police activity in the area, the center’s operator, Northern Health, said on social media. The center said it will return to normal operations on Wednesday at 9 a.m. local time.Tumbler Ridge is so remote that a 30-second car ride out of town means no more cellphone service, said Danielle Roscher, the owner of a local outdoor tour company. “It is a pretty sleepy little place, but as soon as you get into the mountains, it’s amazing,” she said. “You could explore for an entire lifetime and never see everything.” Against that backdrop, the attacks that unfolded on Tuesday are even more unsettling, she said. “It just doesn’t even seem real.”In a social media post, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada condemned the shootings as “horrific acts of violence” and said he had connected with the minister of public safety, who is coordinating the federal response. “I join Canadians in grieving with those whose lives have been changed irreversibly today,” Carney said, and in gratitude for the courage and selflessness of the first responders who risked their lives to protect their fellow citizens.”Tumbler Ridge Secondary School has between 160 and 175 students, according to the websites for the school district and provincial government. Because of the school’s small size, there is a “tremendous sense of community” between staff members and students, the district’s website said.ImageCredit...GoogleSuperintendent Ken Floyd of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said victims are still being triaged, and the police had “no updates” on whether the death toll could rise. “The scene was very dramatic, and there were multiple victims that are still being cared for,” he said. ImageCredit...via ReutersDavid Eby, the premier of British Columbia, said in a post on social media that the government would provide support for community members as they tried to “come to terms with this unimaginable tragedy.”“Our hearts are in Tumbler Ridge tonight with the families of those who have lost loved ones,” he said.Superintendent Ken Floyd of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police confirmed the shooter was the suspect described in a police alert to the community earlier in the day. The alert described the suspect as a “female in a dress with brown hair.” Larry Neufeld, who represents Tumbler Ridge in British Columbia’s legislative assembly, thanked emergency responders for their “swift and professional response.” In a social media post, he asked the public to remain patient as the authorities investigated and to reach out for support if they were struggling.“My thoughts are with the students, families, educators, and the entire Tumbler Ridge community,” he said. “This is a small, close-knit town, and the impact of an event like this is felt by everyone.”Northern Lights College, which serves upper British Colombia, said on social media that its Tumbler Ridge location, in the northeast wing of Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, would be closed for the rest of the week.The police are investigating the motive of the shooter and the shooter’s connection to the school, Superintendent Ken Floyd of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.The shooting at the school and and the residence are believed to be connected, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police representative said, adding that the nature of the connection was still being investigated. Mass homicides are rare in Canada, but Tuesday’s attack was the second in British Columbia in under a year. In April 2025, 11 people were killed in Vancouver when a man drove his S.U.V. into a crowd celebrating a Filipino heritage festival.ImageCredit...Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressThe district where the school is located announced on its website that Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and Tumbler Ridge Elementary School would be closed for the rest of the week. The district said it would share more information about support for students and staff on social media.At a news conference, a representative of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said that the authorities believed they had identified the shooter but were not publicly releasing that information. They are also not releasing information about the ages of the victims yet, he said.The shooting took place in Tumbler Ridge, a town of about 2,400 people in eastern British Columbia, near the border with Alberta. The town is known for its outdoor tourism, including expansive mountain ranges and a UNESCO recognized geological park. Most of the province is policed by federal officers because rural towns, like Tumbler Ridge, are not populous enough to have their own municipal police forces.