Sarah Lampert, the mother of 12-year-old Ticaria Lampert, one of the children killed at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, makes a public statement next to her daughter Niveya inside the community center, two days after a deadly mass shooting took place at the school in the town of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, Feb. 12. Reuters-Yonhap
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The families of victims of a shooting in a remote Canadian Rockies town grappled with unrelenting grief Thursday as details emerged about those killed in the country's deadliest mass shooting in years.
Authorities said the 18-year-old alleged shooter, identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, killed her 39-year-old mother, Jennifer Jacobs, and 11-year-old stepbrother, Emmett Jacobs, in their northern British Columbia home on Tuesday before heading to the nearby Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and opening fire, killing five children and an educator before killing herself.
Twenty-five people were also injured in the attack. The motive remains unclear.
Among the dead was 12-year-old Kylie Smith, whose family remembered her as "the light in our family.”
“She loved her family, friends, and going to school," Kylie's family said in a statement. “She was a talented artist and had dreams of going to art school in the big city of Toronto. Rest in paradise, sweet girl, our family will never be the same without you.”
Kylie's father tearfully recounted the desperate hours spent trying to learn what happened to his daughter, only to find out from an older girl, not the authorities.
Lance Younge told CTV News that his son, Ethan, texted “I love you” shortly after 3 p.m. Tuesday and then called a short time later to say he was hiding in a utility room at his school in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, but that he didn't know where his sister Kylie was.
The family would find out hours later that Kylie was among the dead.
While looking for Kylie, Younge said he walked around the local recreation center where students were reuniting with their families for about six hours, but that police wouldn't tell him anything.
Source: Korea Times News
