Dr. Irwin Cohen is a professor in the department of Criminology & Criminal Justice at the University of the Fraser Valley.
The small town of Tumbler Ridge in Northeastern British Columbia faced an unprecedented tragedy on Feb. 10, when a mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Senior Secondary claimed the lives of eight people and injured 27. The deceased shooter was identified as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, but her motive is currently still unknown. Reportedly, Van Rootselaar was visited by police for mental health reasons multiple times and had guns seized from her home that were later returned. Dr. Cohen shared his insight with The Cascade in the aftermath of the shooting.
“Not only is it [an] incredibly rare occurrence, but it also happens at a time in which we’ve seen pretty significant reductions in violent crime … it’s an anomaly in a lot of ways for Canada.”
The victims killed in the school shooting were Abel Mwansa (12 years old), Ezekiel Schofield (13 years old), Kylie Smith (12 years old), Ticaria Lampert (12 years old), Zoey Benoit (12 years old), and Shannda Aviugana-Durand (39 years old). Van Rootselaar also shot and killed her mother, Jennifer Jacobs (39 years old), and half-brother, Emmett Jacobs (11 years old). Their bodies were found in their family home on Fellers Avenue.
19-year-old Paige Hoekstra was also shot and injured but is expected to make a full recovery. However, the condition of 12-year-old Maya Gebala remains uncertain, but according to CTV News, she is “showing remarkable progress.”
This shooting marks the deadliest attack in B.C. since the Lapu-Lapu Day festival attack in April 2025, which resulted in 11 deaths. The Tumbler Ridge shooting was also the second deadliest in Canadian history since the 2020 Portapique, Nova Scotia massacre.
Dr. Cohen commented on how this tragedy has made an impact, especially in online spaces. Online speculation has pointed out that the shooter’s gender identity as a transgender woman is a potential explanation for the violent act. This stems from a recent internet trend of online agitators and politicians claiming that transgender individuals are more likely to commit crimes than others. However, Cohen said this explanation is inconsistent with reality.
“If you look at shootings, overwhelmingly the profile is young, white, male.”
In a study conducted by Hamline University’s non-profit research centre, the Violence Prevention Project (VPP), data shows that 98 per cent of mass shooters are male, and transgender individuals account for less than one per cent.
A 2021 study from the American Journal of Public Health also shows that transgender individuals are over four times more likely than cisgender people to be the victims of violence rather than the perpetrators.
Dr. Cohen warned that although it is natural to want to identify the cause of the tragic event, it is of utmost importance to first gather all the information possible before making an assessment, and to avoid drawing conclusions when there is not sufficient information available.
“We’ve got to be really careful about that. Because without information out, we can speculate all day long as to what was the root cause, what drove it, what was the intended purpose of it.”
Dr. Cohen cautioned people against speculating on social media and blaming undeserving individuals or demographics.
“Speculating on social media, disparaging people, blaming specific things, is quite dangerous and can cause a lot of problems and challenges that we’re going to then have to unwrap and unravel down the road when more information comes out.”
When looking at potential causes that have influenced mass shootings in the past, the VPP explained that in a lot of cases, there are recurring themes of familial violence and problems handling strong emotions like anger and male entitlement.
Dr. Cohen highlighted that in criminology, there are three categories of youth offenders. There are children who rarely, if ever, get into trouble. Then, there are the adolescence-limited offenders, which Dr. Cohen said include around 80 per cent of children. Finally, there are life-course-persistent offenders, who amount to roughly 20 per cent of youth who get involved in crime at a later point in life.
“Kids whose delinquency, deviance, antisocial behaviour begins much earlier and persists through to adulthood.”
Dr. Cohen also stated that there are numerous root causes, but that most offenders do not suddenly decide to commit a crime on a whim.
“There are all kinds of things that happen at different developmental stages of peoples’ lives. But usually, the kinds of people who end up with long-term problems or really explosive, expressive forms of violence, it’s not ‘wake up one day and do it.’ It’s a long pathway or trajectory towards this.”
When asked where Canadians can go from here, Dr. Cohen emphasized the importance of staying calm in times of uncertainty instead of identifying the problem.
“We blame people, we blame things, and try to address those instead of the root causes of things.”
