Online misinformation complicates RCMP investigation of Tumbler Ridge killings

Purported accounts on social media platforms and sites are prompting speculation on whether video games and gun culture were a factor in the shooting.

British Columbia’s top Mountie told reporters that online misinformation and rumourmongering is complicating the RCMP’s investigation into the suspect’s activity and communications leading up to this week’s shooting spree in Tumbler Ridge.

Jesse Van Rootselaar, who was known socially as Jesse Strang, used several similar aliases across social media platforms, including a crude first-person shooter course she designed on the gaming platform Roblox.

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Investigators are now combing those platforms to determine her “online activity and digital footprint,” but face challenges determining legitimate postings due to the proliferation of photos, videos, and writings being attributed to Van Rootselaar but often depicting other people.

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“There’s also many false flags and false trails on the internet, a lot of social media that is coming out that is factually inaccurate, a lot of allegations, a lot of photos pretending to be the suspect videos, etcetera, that are not (her),” said Deputy Commissioner Dwane McDonald, commanding officer of the B.C. RCMP. “That’s why we urge extreme caution in the sharing of those images or the propagation of online hate or response, because it unfortunately can target innocent individuals.”

The research on school shooters

Many of the inaccurate online posts about Van Rootselaar are from anti-trans accounts – including some overseas – making callous comments and assumptions about why she went on a killing spree on Tuesday.

“I want to remind everyone that most people who have a mental illness do not commit crimes, most people who are trans do not commit crimes, most children who are disaffected with their parents or disaffected with their school do not commit crimes, even school dropouts, most of them don’t commit crimes,” said Dr. Tyler Black, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the University of British Columbia.

He also pointed out that the focus on the violent Roblox game is unhelpful, since decades of research into American school shooters has conclusively found that the “moral panic” over video games that began in the wake of the Columbine massacre, was unfounded.

“Our family background, our poverty status, whether or not we were living in a violent environment, whether or not we’re going to a school, whether or not there’s chaos around us – these things are far more influential on whether or not someone will be violent than whether or not they play video games,” Black said.

He said parents seeing a sudden change in their child’s behaviour, a fixation on something to the exclusion of all other interests, having significant social problems at school, and having a deep interest in violence or previous shootings are all red flags, and that refusing to go to school “would be a big emergency” and should prompt consultation with a family doctor or mental health professional.

The value of online activity

McDonald pointed out that in most cases of mass shootings, suspects leave a significant online presence.

“There’s sometimes indicators or communications with other like-minded individuals,” he said.

Black cautioned the public from having high expectations for learning the motive behind the shootings.

“Whenever shooters are looked at, there’s complicated, multiple, sometimes even generational, reasons why these things happen, overlaying of health concerns and social concerns and financial concerns and legal concerns, even drug and alcohol concerns and personality concerns,” he said. “The final answer for this might be relatively unsatisfying.”