The Tragedy of Tumbler Ridge...
A young man turned trans female with a history of mental illness at the centre of the worst school shooting in decades.
The shooting in Tumbler Ridge is devastating for that community. A small town that’s over 1,000 kilometres north of Vancouver, more than 650 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, not exactly the place you would expect a mass shooting.
Yet on Tuesday afternoon it appears that Jesse Strang, now known by the name Jesse Rootselaar shot and killed their mother and brother before heading to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and opening fire on students.
Jesse, 18, was born a boy but according to RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, began identifying as a girl about 5-6 years ago and dropped out of school about four years ago.
The issue of Jesse being trans has been a hot potato online since last night.
For the moment, I’d rather let the community of Tumbler Ridge and the families who have lost loved ones mourn. A 39 year-old female teacher was shot and killed as were three 12 year-old girls and two boys, one aged 12, the other 13.
It’s tragedy and in the early hours, I can say that our political leadership did the right thing in offering condolences and support to the community. Writing about that was my contribution to this story for the Toronto Sun today and you can read that column here.
Both Prime Minister Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre struck the right tone as they arrived on Parliament Hill for their weekly caucus meetings and reacted to the news.
A history of mental illness…
Eventually, after a period of healing, we will need to deal with questions surrounding why this shooting happened. That would include the many questions that people will have about Jesse’s trans identity and mental health.
Deputy Commissioner McDonald was asked about mental health in this case and had some interesting answers.
Calls to the family home for mental health issues for Jesse.
Medical assessment due to those mental health concerns.
Guns seized from the family home over those mental health concerns.
Guns returned to the rightful owner, presumed to be the now deceased mother after she petitioned to have them returned.
Jesse’s PAL gun licence expired about two years ago.
We know what will happen next, there will be calls for greater gun control and little attention will be paid to all of the above.
The Liberals have been under pressure for years to ban the SKS rifle, one of the most commonly owned firearms in Canada, especially on reserves. It’s cheap, it’s reliable, it can be used for both hunting and target practice.
One of the social media accounts allegedly tied to Jesse featured an image that looked like an SKS, and it’s likely that is the rifle used here. Social media posts belonging to Jesse’s mother appear to indicate that she did own an SKS among other rifles.
Regardless, the Liberals will be under greater pressure to ban that gun as a result of this shooting.
Canada has quite strict gun laws, including the ability to seize guns due to mental health concerns.
That happened here but then was reversed.
My worry is that most of our incurious media, and that is most of the industry, won’t ask difficult questions around Jesse, mental illness and more, they will just join the call for banning more guns and nothing will change.
In my view, no one shoots up a school unless they have mental health issues and today we saw another example proving that point.
This is sad. A true devastation to so many people. Sadly, tho, Brian is right here. The media and the Liberal government will weaponize this tragedy to push forward more censorship and more gun laws. All while avoiding the hard questions, or taking partial accountability for this horror.
Police effectively misled the Tumbler Ridge community when an active shooter was at large. They said it was a woman in a dress instead of a biological male over 6 ft tall in a dress. A Material difference. So we can conclude facts were excluded by police in an active shooting. Noted.