Canadian police have identified the perpetrator of the mass shooting at a high school as 18-year-old woman Jesse Strang, who had mental health issues.
A short while later, authorities issued an additional statement, stating that Strang was born a biological man who identified as a woman named Jess, Sky News reports.
The shooting in the remote village of Tumbler Ridge, in the province of British Columbia, killed nine people and injured at least 25 others. Two of the victims were transported by helicopter to the hospital in critical condition. The initial death toll was 10, but police later revised the figure to nine. The suspect was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on the school grounds.
Deputy Commissioner Duane McDonald of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said law enforcement had visited Strang's family home multiple times in recent years due to reports of the suspect's mental health.
According to the investigation, Strang first killed her 39-year-old mother and 11-year-old stepbrother in the family home. She then went to the school, where she shot and killed a 39-year-old teacher, three 12-year-old female students and two male students – aged 12 and 13.
Tuesday's shooting is the deadliest in Canada since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia shot 13 people and set fires that killed nine more.
Another major attack occurred in 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, where a gunman killed 14 women in a hate-motivated attack on feminism.