WA resident arrested in connection with BC school shooting

Ann Duan and Mike Carter, The Seattle Times on Oct 6, 2026

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A Bellingham, Wash., resident was arrested and charged Tuesday in connection with a February school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., where nine people died, including the shooter.

James Cody Bryant, 30, was charged with conspiring to murder people in a foreign country. According to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar killed two family members and carried out a mass shooting at a high school in the remote Canadian town on Feb. 10, killing five students and an educational assistant before killing herself.

Officials said Bryant was in constant communication with Van Rootselaar in the six months leading up to the attack, helping Van Rootselaar coordinate and broadcast the shooting.

The two reportedly first connected on the now defunct video chat website Omegle in 2023, then in August 2025 began corresponding on the platform Discord. During their conversations, Van Rootselaar shared plans to shoot and kill people and Bryant allegedly agreed to livestream the attack, helping test equipment beforehand, according to officials.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials said they reached out to the FBI after one of the online platforms the suspects used reached out to them.

“I read a lot of court documents, including some that discuss incredibly heinous acts of violence,” said Mike Herrington, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Seattle field office. “But this complaint was particularly difficult to read in part because of the casual tone these two individuals used when discussing the mass taking of innocent lives.”

U.S. attorneys say Bryant also sent Van Rootselaar money to buy items needed to carry out the attack, including a lighter to detonate an explosive, and suggested what gun to use to increase the carnage. Bryant also allegedly told Van Rootselaar how they could hide their plot using virtual private networks to stream the shooting.

Bryant tried talking Van Rootselaar out of carrying out the attack, according to the news release, but did not notify law enforcement about the plans and agreed to handle the livestream minutes before the attack. After Van Rootselaar killed her mother and half-brother at home, Bryant gave advice on how she could fix a car engine to drive to the school and carry out the shooting, U.S. attorneys allege.

“Without Bryant’s misplaced loyalty and willingness to operate the livestream, we don't ultimately know if the shooter would have gone through with the crime,” Herrington said.

Bryant is in custody and could face up to life in prison, if convicted as charged.

British Columbia sued OpenAI in September after Van Rootselaar talked to a chatbot about her mental health struggles and plans to carry out the deadly attack. The province alleged the company had documentation that could have prevented the shooting.

More than 30 lawsuits have also been filed by survivors, prompting the company’s chief executive, Sam Altman to issue an open-letter apology.

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