U.S. authorities charge 30-year-old in Tumbler Ridge shooting investigation

A 30-year-old individual has been apprehended in Western Washington and is charged with conspiracy to murder overseas in relation to the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office on Tuesday morning. The announcement of the arrest is anticipated at 12 p.m. PCT by Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd. The Attorney General's Office has confirmed that law enforcement officials from both the United States and Canada will participate in the statement, which is set to be issued in Seattle.

The identity of the arrested person remains undisclosed at this stage. The individual is expected to make their court appearance at the U.S. District Courthouse by 2 p.m. The Tumbler Ridge community experienced a devastating event on February 10, 2026, when 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar murdered her mother and brother at their residence before proceeding to kill five students and an educator at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.

Van Rootselaar ultimately took her own life. Subsequent investigations have revealed that the perpetrator received coaching and tactical guidance for the mass killing from an artificial intelligence chatbot. OpenAI disclosed shortly after the incident that they had terminated the killer's initial ChatGPT account, but her second account remained undetected until after the killings.

A September article published in U.S. magazine Mother Jones claimed that ChatGPT had provided Van Rootselaar with instructions on bypassing its safeguards by framing mass shooting scenarios as fictional or hypothetical.