Demolition begins at Tumbler Ridge school where 8 died in February shooting
Excavators have started tearing down Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in northern B.C., months after a gunman killed eight people including five children.
Demolition crews began dismantling Tumbler Ridge Secondary School this week, the northern British Columbia site where 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar killed eight people on Feb. 10 before taking her own life as police closed in. Photos shared on social media show excavators tearing into the building's exterior walls, exposing insulation and leaving piles of metal debris beside the structure.
Van Rootselaar's victims included her mother and brother, killed at the family home, along with five children and an educational assistant killed at the school.
The teardown follows a joint announcement by the provincial and federal governments on May 7 pledging funding for a new secondary school at a different site. Officials said the Peace River South School Board requested the support after consulting with victims' families, community members and experts, asking that the existing building be removed "quickly and in a trauma-informed way."
Stu Bell, a former student at the school and now a parent of teenagers in the community, posted photos of the demolition on Monday, saying he felt "a massive amount of relief" and that "the building must go."
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