Tumbler Ridge, B.C., teacher says he knew school staff would protect students

TUMBLER RIDGE — A teacher who helped to protect his students at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School when a killer began shooting says he never felt alone and knew all the staff were doing their best to shelter and protect the children.

Mark Deeley, the science teacher at the small community in British Columbia’s northeast, said in a statement Saturday that he knew the moment the shooting started “that other teachers and staff were going to do their best to protect our kids.”

Deeley’s story was first told by Premier David Eby during a vigil in the town on Friday night.

The premier relayed how Deeley’s son had gone to the washroom when he heard the shots starting, and then made the decision to block the door to keep the rest of the students safe.

Six people, most of them under 13, were killed at the school by the 18-year-old shooter, who had also killed her mother and brother in a home not far from the school. She killed herself as police arrived at the school.

Deeley’s statement posted on social media said it is important for residents in Tumbler Ridge to know that the adults they trusted their children with tried very hard to shelter and protect them.

“Barricading doors, keeping kids calm, distracting them and making them feel loved.”

He said the staff took a stand, not only because they love their jobs, but “they sincerely love our kids.”

He said the staff show up every day to put the students’ needs ahead of their own, “and that was shown in the ultimate way the other day.”

Eby said when Deeley’s son made it back to the classroom they saw a student, critically injured in the hall, and brought them into the classroom to administer first aid.

“Teachers who did what they were told to do, what they trained and practised to do, saved lives. And in those actions, in those heroic actions, are the seeds of the recovery of this community, because the future of Tumbler Ridge is in that school,” Eby told the crowd.

The superintendent of the Peace River South school district issued a letter to families on Friday saying the expectation is that students will not be returning to the high school.

The letter from Christy Fennell says further plans will be shared in the next week that “prioritizes emotional and physical safety through a trauma informed lens.”

It says that they know some families want the stability of school routines, while others may not feel ready.

The district’s priority remains supporting the deeply impacted community, it says.

The letter tells parents to talk to their children about healthy coping strategies and “how they can support themselves and others with kindness.”

Eby also promised at the vigil that students would have a safe space to learn when classes resumed.

Yellow tape around the home where two people were killed has been removed after police said their investigation would be finished at the site where 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar killed her mother, Jennifer Strang, and brother, 11-year-old Emmett Jacobs.

Reached through social media on Saturday, Emmett’s father, Jean-Pierre (JP) Jacobs sent a post made by his current partner, Sharon Morrison.

She said JP Jacobs is the father of Strang’s three youngest boys, including Emmett, and that he hadn’t seen the boys for a number of years. She said Strang had another daughter, who shared the same father as Van Rootselaar.

Morrison said Jacobs wants to have his two sons live with their family, but the boys are currently staying with their grandparents, which has made contact difficult.

“We want to love them. That’s all we want. We want this to be peaceful. That’s it,” she said.

“I’m sorry for the community of Tumbler Ridge and everything going on and how everyone’s feeling, how lost we all are. I see a lot of people, they’re lost, they’re hurting. I’m sorry.”

A 2015 B.C. Supreme Court ruling over access to his children between the shooter’s mother and father — who is not Jacobs — describes the family as living “an almost nomadic life,” with Jennifer Jacobs moving multiple times across multiple provinces in the five previous years.

The mother was found to have engaged in “reprehensible conduct” by failing to give the father of her two oldest children enough notice that she was moving back to Newfoundland in August 2015.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 14, 2026.

Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press