Minister says naming Tumbler Ridge guns would be irresponsible, as FBI tells of ‘SKS’

Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree says it would be “irresponsible” to disclose what guns were used in the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting after an FBI complaint said the killer intended to use weapons including an SKS rifle, that had previously been confiscated by police.

The complaint against a Washington state suspect accused of conspiring with shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar for months provides extensive new details about the guns that may have been used in the attack in British Columbia, including a photo said to be the killer posing with a rifle on the day of the attack.

Read more:

• U.S. suspect conspired with Tumbler Ridge killer before and during attack: FBI
• FBI depicts Tumbler Ridge shooter’s guns, including ‘SKS’ once confiscated by RCMP
• New details in extensive FBI account of Tumbler Ridge, B.C., mass shooting

Gun expert Frank Grosspietsch, a retired RCMP weapons officer with the national weapons enforcement support team, identified a gun shown in a different set of photos in the complaint as a KRISS Vector submachine-gun, which was banned in Canada in 2024.

The photos were in the complaint setting out allegations against James Bryant, and the FBI said the photos were sent to Bryant by Van Rootselaar in 2025.

The complaint includes chats in which Van Rootselaar allegedly speaks of intending to use an SKS returned by police to carry out her “plan” for a mass killing.

Anandasangaree says an expert panel is reviewing whether to ban semi-automatic SKS weapons, but it’s “absolutely not” a political decision to withhold information about what guns were used in Tumbler Ridge on Feb. 10, when Van Rootselaar killed eight people, including five school students and an educational assistant before killing herself.

Neither the RCMP nor federal authorities have said what guns were used in the killings.

“This is in respect of the people that were tragically killed, the families who themselves were asking many, many questions,” Anandasangaree told reporters on Wednesday.

“And I think it would be irresponsible for me to give you bits and pieces of a very large set of investigations.”

The complaint sworn by an FBI agent in Seattle says Bryant, who is charged with conspiracy to murder in a foreign country, told officers that Van Rootselaar stole firearms and ammunition from her family’s gun safe and hid them in her room “in preparation for a mass shooting.”

It also says in claims not tested in court that 18-year-old Van Rootselaar told Bryant, 30, in online chats that she had convinced another person to purchase ammunition on her behalf.

The RCMP criminal investigation into the shooting is ongoing, despite Van Rootselaar having killed herself at the school.

Assistant RCMP Commissioner Elija Rain, who is acting commanding officer in B.C., said in a statement that “investigators have made substantial progress in the criminal investigation.”

Rain said the RCMP’s release of information about the case has recently been limited “because of the need to ensure our investigative theories and actions were not compromised.”

He attended a news conference in Seattle on Tuesday to discuss Byrant’s case, but he declined to answer questions about the guns, citing a publication ban in Canada.

Grosspietsch, who is a technical adviser to the Association of Firearm and Toolmark Examiners, said in an interview that photos sent by Van Rootselaar to Bryant in August last year show her with a KRISS Vector machine-gun.

“The firearms industry recognized that if they ‘sexied up,’ and I use that term liberally, firearms to look like military pattern-type firearms or have a bit of a mystique to it, they would sell. KRISS Vector is one of those types of firearms,” he said.

Grosspietsch said the same type of weapon could be seen in a photo of a gun safe shared on social media by Van Rootselaar’s mother, who was killed along with Van Rootselaar’s younger brother before Van Rootselaar headed to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School where the other victims were shot.

The FBI complaint released on Tuesday says Van Rootselaar told Bryant on the Discord platform that she possessed a 3D-printed foregrip, firearm magazines and a “switch” device for an SKS rifle, which the FBI says likely referred to a “machine-gun conversion device.”

Bryant, 30, of Bellingham, Wash., allegedly told the FBI that Van Rootselaar “ended up using some of these same items during the Tumbler Ridge shooting.”

Another photo in the complaint shows a Canuck brand shotgun, decorated with a sticker in the transgender pride colours of blue, pink and white.

Van Rootselaar was trans, and the FBI said Tuesday that Bryant is also trans and identifies as female.

Bryant allegedly tells Van Rootselaar: “Love the stickers … stickers would be so funny to be seen in photos of the incident.”

RCMP say in Canadian legal documents released in August that shotgun shell casings were strewn on the floor of the family home where Van Rootselaar killed her brother and mother and an empty shotgun was found nearby.

A photo in the Bryant complaint depicts a person the FBI says is Van Rootselaar, posing on their knees in a black miniskirt and fishnet stockings, while holding an olive-green rifle with a telescopic sight on the morning of the attack.

On the end of the barrel is what appears to be a suppressor, also decorated in blue, white and pink bands.

The FBI says that in December 2025, Van Rootselaar discussed another gun she said she was planning to use in the attack.

“The police knocked my SKS sights off zero a lil’ bit when they roughly confiscated it, so the gun has been hitting high and to the left,” she allegedly told Bryant.

Adjusting the sights would be “a lot of work and I may end up doing my plan with a gun with sights that are super off,” Van Rootselaar allegedly said, before adding “I’m sure I can still do fine.”

— With files by Chuck Chiang in Vancouver