Suspect in Canada shooting is identified as an 18-year-old with history of police visits to her home

DEADLIEST RAMPAGE SINCE 2020

The attack was Canada’s deadliest rampage since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead.

Carney said flags at government buildings will be flown at half-staff for seven days and added: “We will get through this”.

Shelley Quist said her neighbour across the street lost her 12-year-old. “We heard his mom. She was in the street crying. She wanted her son’s body,” Quist said.

Quist said her 17-year-old son, Darian, was on lockdown in the school for more than two hours. The provincial government website lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as having 175 students in grades 7 to 12.

“The grade sevens and eights, I think, were upstairs in the library, and that’s where the shooter went,” she said. Her son was in the library just 15 minutes prior to the attack.

Quist was working at the hospital down the street when the shooting started.

“I was about to go run down to the school, but my coworker held me back. And then I was able to get Darian on the phone to know he was OK,” she said.

Darian Quist said he knew the attack was real when the principal came down the halls and ordered doors to be closed. He said fellow students texted him pictures of blood while he remained locked down in a classroom.

“We used the desk to block the doors,” he said.

School shootings are rare in Canada, which has strict gun-control laws. The government has responded to previous mass shootings with gun-control measures, including a recently broadened ban on all guns it considers assault weapons.

A video showed students walking out with their hands raised as police vehicles surrounded the building and a helicopter circled overhead.