A 12-year-old girl has been identified as one of the six young victims killed in Tuesday’s mass shooting at a British Columbia secondary school.
Kylie May Smith was among those gunned down when transgender ex-student Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, opened fire at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Tuesday afternoon, according to a GoFundMe created for her family.
“Yesterday our family received the gut-wrenching news that our beautiful Kylie May was confirmed to be one of the victims in the Tumbler Ridge school shooting,” her aunt, Shanon Dycke, wrote in a statement on the fundraising page.
“She was just 12 years old. We are completely devastated and have no words as we try to process the magnitude of the situation,” Dycke wrote.
Nine people in total were killed during the shooting, including Van Rootselar, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The shooter, who identified as a transgender woman and began transitioning from a male to female roughly six years ago, first gunned down his mother, 39-year-old Jennifer Strang, and stepbrother, 11, at a private residence.
Rootselaar then continued the rampage at the school, killing one teacher and five students, including three 12-year-old girls and two boys aged 12 and 13.
One victim was found in the stairwell, and the rest were believed to have been found dead in the school’s library, RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said during a press conference on Wednesday.
Dycke described Smith as a “beautiful, kind, innocent soul” and urged people to donate funds to support her mother, Desirae, her brother, Ethan, and other family members, and to create a memorial for the slain tween.
“As word travels around the world, our family’s world has crumbled with the loss of my beautiful niece, Kylie May Smith. She was at Tumbler Ridge school yesterday, and didn’t make it out,” Dycke wrote in a separate post on Facebook.
Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, located in a remote part of northeastern British Columbia, enrolls students in grades 7 through 12.
The shooting ranks as one of the deadliest in Canada’s history.
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