Roblox has removed the account belonging to teenage transgender suspect Jesse Van Rootselaar
The 18-year-old suspect responsible for the deadliest school shooting in British Columbia, Canada in decades created a video game on the popular platform Roblox that allowed users to simulate a shooting in a shopping mall.
Jesse Van Rootselaar, a former student at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, is accused of killing nine people, including his mother, 11-year-old stepbrother, five students, and a teacher, before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on February 10.
“We have removed the user account connected to this horrifying incident as well as any content associated with the suspect,” a Roblox spokesperson said in a statement on Thursday.
The game, which depicted a blocky, cartoon character wielding various weapons and shooting others in a shopping mall setting, was initially discovered not by police, but by users on the online forum Kiwi Farms. Videos of the simulation circulated online before Roblox intervened. The company claimed that the game had only received seven visits prior to its removal.
???? Tumbler Ridge School mass shooter Jesse Strang (Van Rootselaar)'s Roblox account featured a British Columbia mall shooting simulator.
Players could fire into crowds at a mall sharing a name with a real Canadian location.
The revelation is part of a larger, troubling digital footprint left by Van Rootselaar. Police initially referred to the suspect as a “gunperson in a dress” and “an 18-year-old female.” Only when pressed by reporters on Wednesday did the RCMP spokesperson acknowledge that “Jesse was born as a biological male.”
Van Rootselaar allegedly maintained a presence on the graphic website WatchPeopleDie, a forum known for sharing images of violent death and glorifying mass shooters, according to an analysis by the ADL Center on Extremism.
“I love these first person perspective type videos, when the shooter records his or her own actions it’s always heat,” an account linked to Van Rootselaar reportedly commented on compilation videos of prior mass shootings.
On Reddit, Van Rootselaar allegedly posted about suicidal thoughts, his gender transition, and struggles with mental health. In a February 2023 post, he detailed starting a fire at home while under the influence of psychedelic mushrooms and mentioned recent hospitalizations for psychiatric care and a diagnosis of being on the autism spectrum.
Police confirmed that they frequently attended the family’s home for mental health-related complaints. Van Rootselaar held a minor’s firearms license that expired in 2024. The attack is one of the deadliest in Canadian history since the 1989 Ecole Polytechnique massacre.