A former RCMP weapons officer says guns in a photo posted by the Tumbler Ridge shooter’s mother all appear to have been legal to own in Canada at the time, although they include a semi-automatic rifle that was later prohibited.

Jennifer Jacobs posted the photo of guns in a cabinet to Facebook in August 2024 with the caption, “Think it’s time to take them out for some target practice.”

Jacobs and her 11-year-old son were among eight people killed in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., on Feb. 10 by Jacobs’s daughter, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, before she killed herself.

Frank Grosspietsch, a retired RCMP officer with the National Weapons Enforcement Support Team and a technical adviser to the Association of Firearm and Toolmark Examiners, said the photo posted by Jacobs includes five rifles — three of which appear to be semi-automatic — two shotguns and a handgun.

“I can’t see any of the markings that are on the firearms but I’m looking at the undersides, the barrel configurations, the stocks and unique markers that stand out to me,” he said.

He added that “every firearm in that locker at the time that photograph was taken was non-restricted.”

An RCMP spokesperson said in an email on Thursday in response to questions about the guns in the photo that they “will not confirm which firearms have been seized as these details are subject to the ongoing investigation.”

It’s unclear whether Van Rootselaar used any of the guns from the photo in the killings, or if they were among the weapons that police previously seized from the home under the Criminal Code before returning them after a request from their owner.

RCMP say they seized two firearms from the home last week, including an unregistered shotgun police said was used in the killings, as well as “a number of other firearms.”

2:03
Father of Taber school shooting victim speaks out after Tumbler Ridge tragedy

Police also seized a long gun and modified rifle from Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, where Van Rootselaar shot dead five pupils aged 12 and 13, a teacher’s aide and then herself.

The rifle on the far left of the photo is a bolt-action Lee-Enfield, a First World War-era weapon commonly found across Canada, Grosspietsch said.

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Second from the left is a pump-action shotgun that he said is missing its barrel, which “may be what we see to the far right in the safe.”

To the right of that gun is what appears to be a Winchester pump-action shotgun, then a bolt-action Tikka rifle.

Grosspietsch said the distinctive and boxy-looking black gun in the middle of the cabinet is a Kriss Vector semi-automatic 9-mm rifle.

In August 2024, when the photo was posted, “that particular firearm on that date was deemed as non-restricted,” he said.

“So whoever in the household, if they had a valid PAL (possession and acquisition licence) could have purchased that because at that time it was non-restricted. It wasn’t deemed prohibited until December.”

The Kriss Vector became illegal to own in December 2024 after the federal government extended its list of prohibited assault-style firearms, a decision it said it made to counter crime.

Grosspietsch said the other two guns in the cabinet appear to be semi-automatic rifles, an SKS on the left and what looks like a Ruger carbine next to it.

2:02
Latest on the Tumbler Ridge shooting investigation

In the top part of the cabinet, he noticed a high-capacity magazine for a .22 rifle. “They’re rim fire, so there’s no restriction on the size of the magazine. So they are not limited to 10 rounds,” Grosspietsch said, adding that above the boxes of ammunition there is a handgun.

Non-restricted firearms don’t need to be registered in Canada, with the exception of Quebec, though they can only be transferred to someone who holds a valid PAL.

RCMP said Jennifer Jacobs held a valid PAL and there were no firearms registered to it.

The firearms in the photo are not inconsistent with guns owned by many Canadians with a valid PAL, Grosspietsch said.

“It’s not more complicated than that,” he said.

B.C. RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said last week that the shotgun used at the home had never been seized.

The main firearm used in the killings at the school had also never been seized by police, McDonald said, adding it is of “unknown origin.”

McDonald said Van Rootselaar had a gun licence that expired in 2024 and had no weapons registered to her.

It’s not known who owned the guns that where previously seized from the home where Jacobs and Van Rootselaar lived, or who successfully applied for their return.

In a memorandum Wednesday, the B.C. Provincial Court’s Chief Judge Melissa Gillespie wrote there was no formal written application filed at the Dawson Creek or Tumbler Ridge registries by Jacobs in relation to firearms previously seized at the home.

“There are no adult records in relation to Jesse Van Rootselaar in relation to any firearms seized under the Criminal Code,” she added.

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Kelowna, B.C.’s top RCMP officer says he’s hearing growing frustration from local business owners as crime and social disorder continue to impact the city.

Supt. Chris Goebel addressed city council on Monday, acknowledging the day-to-day realities many businesses are facing, including people sleeping in doorways, open drug use, warming fires and damage to private property.

“They are the ones experiencing it,” Goebel told council. “And I hear you.”

The comments come as ongoing break-ins and visible social disorder leave many business owners questioning when enough is enough.

Lori Sellen, owner of Hitz Boutique, says the damage downtown is becoming a daily sight.

“Every day there’s another window boarded up here,” Sellen said. “There’s evidence of fires, we see it all the time down here.”

According to Kelowna RCMP data, reports of social disorder are up 15 per cent in 2025. At the same time, break-and-enters are down 8.1 per cent, a statistic that has come as a surprise to many downtown businesses.

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Nyssa Morgan, studio manager at Sweat Studios, says those numbers don’t always reflect the reality on the ground.

“It might not necessarily be what the reality is for downtown businesses,” Morgan said. “Sometimes the response to break-ins is they show up half an hour, an hour after it happens.”

While business owners credit RCMP and bylaw officers for stepping up patrols in recent weeks, there are concerns the increased presence may not last.

“Are they going to keep it up?” Sellen asked. “That’s what we need, desperately.”

Last week, Kelowna’s mayor told officials in Ottawa that the RCMP does not have the tools and support needed to keep the community safe.

“No one wants to hear that,” Sellen said. “Obviously, we need more help.”

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BC Conservatives in Kelowna to talk crime

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Goebel pointed to a provincial pilot program targeting chronic property crime and public disorder as one approach showing promise. According to police, all five identified repeat offenders through the program are currently in custody.

“Looking at the 2025 police data, there would have been 646 individuals we would have submitted for consideration for this program,” Goebel said.

In recent weeks, hundreds of business owners packed two separate forums focused on crime and public disorder, one hosted by the City of Kelowna and another organized by local Conservative MLAs. While there is some optimism, many say municipal action alone isn’t enough.

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Alberta RCMP say one person is dead and more than a dozen are injured after a charter bus hit the median east of Grande Prairie.

According to police, at about 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, officers responded to the collision approximately one kilometre west of the hamlet of Debolt.

Police said an initial investigation found the bus hit the median and rolled over once, landing on its wheels.

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A total of 37 people were on board the bus, including adults and children. RCMP confirmed in a news release that a 50-year-old woman from Grande Prairie died as a result of the collision.

Firefighters and multiple paramedics were dispatched; they assessed six passengers who were in serious condition and sent to hospital via ambulance. Their conditions are not known at this time.

A bus was brought in to transport 16 other patients to hospital who were said to have minor injuries. They were released after being checked.

The remaining passengers who were not injured were transported to the Debolt fire hall.

RCMP collision reconstructionists attended the scene. While the crash is still under investigation, road conditions are believed to be a factor.

Local victim services, alongside the RCMP’s victim and family liaison officers, have been engaged. People impacted by the incident are asked to contact their local RCMP; resources will be provided.

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A psychiatrist with British Columbia’s Northern Health authority has called for a new mental health hospital in B.C. in her testimony to an inquest into the deaths of a Prince Rupert family.

The coroner’s inquest has heard that Christopher Duong was suspected by police to have killed his wife Janet Nguyen, their two young sons and then himself on June 13, 2023, three days after he was detained under the Mental Health Act but then released a few hours later.

Dr. Barbara Kane was asked on Friday if resources at Prince Rupert Regional Hospital, where Duong was assessed, could have influenced the decision to release him, with inquest counsel Steven Liu saying the hearing had heard that the locked detention room at the hospital was “akin to torture.”

Liu questioned whether keeping someone under such conditions could damage a doctor-patient relationship, noting that the doctor who released Duong was also his long-term family physician. Kane said that was a judgment call and was “not easy.”

She said there was nowhere for general purpose hospitals in the north to send potentially “dangerous” people with severe, ongoing mental illness.

“They used to go to Riverview,” she said, referring to the psychiatric hospital in Coquitlam. B.C., that was closed in 2012. “We don’t have that anymore. So, they stay with us and it backs up the whole system.”

She said the difficulty transferring people meant she was “pretty sure that there are people who get discharged before they should. Because we don’t have the right services.“

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The hearing in Burnaby, B.C., has heard that Duong was released after an assessment by a doctor at Prince Rupert Regional Hospital who was also his longtime family physician, and who found him to be “friendly and calm” at the time.

James Wale, a deputy director of child welfare with the Ministry for Children and Family Development, testified later Friday that given the information available to the ministry at the time, “there is nothing that we saw that we would have done differently.”

A social worker previously told the hearing that he did not narrow a five-day window to contact the family to 24 hours after Duong’s apprehension, because of his belief that Duong was still in hospital, calling it a “big determinant.” Instead, the inquest heard, a social worker tried to call Nguyen on the day the family died at her parents’ home and was told they were napping.

Kane had said at the start of her testimony that safety plans for patients detained under the Mental Health Act normally aren’t done if they are subsequently released.

Asked for recommendations about psychiatric care, Kane said doctors “need a psychiatric hospital in B.C., a real psychiatric hospital,” adding that maybe the province needed “a couple of them.”

She also said there should be someone with psychiatric training in all or almost all emergency rooms.

Police apprehended Duong after he was found driving around Prince Rupert at 2 a.m., with Nguyen and their boys aged two and four, saying they had to keep driving or they would be killed in a “hit.”

Duong was known to police and rumoured to be involved in the drug trade, while a notice of civil claim filed by B.C.’s director of civil forfeiture in 2015 describes him as a “violent gang member and drug trafficker.”

But an RCMP officer told the inquest on Thursday there was no evidence that anyone else was involved in the deaths of the family, who were all found in bed together, with an electrical cord around Nguyen’s neck, cuts to Duong’s arms and legs, and the two boys arranged with teddy bears at their feet.

The officer said a video “last will and testament” was found on the couple’s phones.

A forensic pathologist said the boys had died of asphyxiation.

If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, support is available 24/7 by calling or texting 988, Canada’s national suicide prevention helpline.

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