‘Put my daughter’s picture up’: Parents of Canada shooting victim decry focus on suspect

Family grieve loss of daughter in Canada shooting

When the doors of Tumbler Ridge Secondary School closed on Tuesday morning, Lance Young did not know he was saying goodbye to his daughter for the last time.

Standing outside the small rural school in northern British Columbia, he watched his little girl, Kylie walk in beside her 15-year-old brother Ethan.

The image stayed with him, painfully so, after the afternoon unfolded into one of Canada’s deadliest school shootings in years.

Six people were found dead at the school when officers with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrived on the scene.

Kylie Smith with her father. Photo: Lance Younge / Facebook

Police later confirmed the victims at the school included a 39-year-old female teacher and five students – three 12-year-old girls and two boys aged 12 and 13.

The suspected shooter – Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, who was born male but began transitioning to female six years ago and publicly identified as female – was also dead from an apparent self-inflicted wound.

Van Rootselaar had killed her mother, 39, and her stepbrother, 11, at the nearby family home before heading to the school, police said. The death toll from the two incidents was revised down to 9, including Van Rootselaar, after 10 deaths were initially reported.

The motive of the shooting was unclear.

Among the children killed was Kylie Smith, a year 7 student described by her family as the “light of their lives”.

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Speaking to CTV News, Young said his daughter loved art and anime and dreamed of one day studying in Toronto.

Despite being young, she was already thriving at high school in a community where most pupils grow up together.

“She was just a beautiful soul,” he said, adding, “she never hurt a soul”.

During the chaos of the attack, Ethan managed to hide in a utility closet inside the school.

From there, he contacted his family to tell them he loved them, though he did not know where his sister was.

Young said the anguish of losing Kylie was made worse by online speculation about the shooter and their motives.

He pleaded for the focus to remain on the children who died, not the person who killed them.

Kylie (second from right) is pictured with family. Photo: Lance Younge / Facebook

“If you want to put someone’s picture up on the news, put my daughter’s picture up,” he said.

“Let’s stop giving this psychopath the recognition. These kids were lost before they even became teenagers.”

Tumbler Ridge is a remote community of about 2400 people nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, close to the Alberta border.

The secondary school has fewer than 175 students, meaning most families know one another personally.

Young said this closeness made the tragedy even harder to bear.

“All these families know each other, they grew up together,” he said. “They are amazing kids.”

Tumbler Ridge Secondary School is shown in Tumbler Ridge, British Colombia. Photo: Jesse Boily / AP

Young ended his message with a simple plea to parents everywhere.

“Hold your kids tight,” he said. “Tell them you love them every day, because you never know.”