Roblox has taken down the account of teenage transgender suspect Jesse Van Rootselaar
The 18-year-old accused of carrying out British Columbia’s deadliest school shooting in decades designed a game on the Roblox platform that let users reenact a mall shooting.
Jesse Van Rootselaar, a former Tumbler Ridge Secondary School student, is alleged to have killed nine individuals—including his mother, 11-year-old stepbrother, five students, and a teacher—before taking his own life with a gunshot 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 representative stated on Thursday.
The game, featuring a blocky cartoon avatar using assorted weapons to shoot others in a mall environment, was first uncovered by users on the Kiwi Farms online forum, not by law enforcement. Footage of the simulation spread online before Roblox took action. The company stated the game had garnered just seven visits before it was deleted.
🚨 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.
Roblox deleted the account after suspicions arose, but…
— Allen Hampton (@Hamp_Allen)
This discovery forms part of a broader, disturbing digital trail left by Van Rootselaar. Police first described the suspect as a “gunperson in a dress” and “an 18-year-old female.” It was only after repeated questioning by reporters on Wednesday that an RCMP spokesperson confirmed “Jesse was born as a biological male.”
According to an analysis from the ADL Center on Extremism, Van Rootselaar allegedly had an account on the explicit site WatchPeopleDie, a forum notorious for distributing violent death imagery and celebrating mass shooters.
“I love these first person perspective type videos, when the shooter records his or her own actions it’s always heat,” an account connected to Van Rootselaar is said to have commented on compilations of past mass shootings.
On Reddit, Van Rootselaar reportedly wrote about suicidal ideation, his gender transition, and mental health challenges. In a post from February 2023, he described setting a house fire while using psychedelic mushrooms and noted recent hospital stays for psychiatric treatment along with an autism spectrum diagnosis.
Authorities verified they were often called to the family residence for mental health concerns. Van Rootselaar possessed a minor’s firearms license which lapsed in 2024. The shooting ranks among Canada’s most lethal incidents since the 1989 Ecole Polytechnique massacre.