BREAKING: Canada Mass Shooter’s Uncle Confirms He Was Trans According to Report – 10 Dead, at Least 25 Others Injured

An independent Canadian news outlet is reporting that the shooter who killed at least nine people and injured at least 25 at a British Columbia high school Tuesday was identified as a transgender-identifying male by a family member.

While other news outlets have not confirmed the shooter’s identity, Juno News said it spoke with the uncle of Jesse Strang, who confirmed that he was the shooter at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada.

Strang, his uncle said, had died in the shooting. Authorities confirmed that this appeared to be from a self-inflicted injury, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

Six were found dead inside the school, while a seventh died while being transported to the hospital. Two other bodies were found at a residence which was believed to be connected to the shooting.

“It’s hard to know what to say on a night like tonight. It’s the kind of thing that feels like it happens in other places and not close to home,” said British Columbia Premier David Eby, as per the U.K. Guardian.

The District of Tumbler Ridge, meanwhile, said that the incident was “deeply distressing” and that they recognized “that many residents may be feeling shocked, scared and overwhelmed” in the town of roughly 2,500.

“In the days ahead, we know this will be difficult for many to process. Please check in on one another, lean on available supports, and know that Tumbler Ridge is a strong and caring community.”

However, hours after the attack, little official information was available about the identity of the shooter, despite the Royal Canadian Mounted Police being confident that they had both found the sole murderer and connected the two deaths at a residence to them.

Police initially said in an active shooter alert that the suspect was a “female in a dress with brown hair.”

During a news conference, however, RCMP Superintendent Ken Floyd referred to the shooter as a “deceased gunperson,” a phrase which raised some eyebrows.

🚨 BREAKING: 10 people are dead, 25 injured after a “woman wearing a dress” opened fire on a school in British Columbia, Canada

Local police are referring to the shooter as a “gunperson.”

Yeah, we all know this is yet another trans mass shooter. pic.twitter.com/McA9C0nmcc

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 11, 2026

As of 1 a.m. British Columbia time, authorities had not released the identity of the shooter, with RCMP Staff Sgt. Kris Clark telling the CBC that he didn’t “have any details on the identity or the age or any of that information of the suspect at this time.”

However, Juno News reported that it spoke with Russell G. Strang, the uncle of Jesse Strang and brother of Jennifer Strang, Jesse’s mother. Jennifer is believed to be one of the two victims found dead in the separate residence.

“Juno News reviewed social media and online accounts connected to Jesse Strang following confirmation from his uncle,” the outlet said.

In a post dated July 6, 2021, Jennifer Strang promoted her son’s YouTube channel, writing:

“Check out my oldest son Jesse Strang YouTube channel. He posts about hunting, self reliance, guns and stuff he likes to do. Subscribe and you’ll get notifications when he posts new videos. he doesn’t go on much other social media so this is his way of sharing his life,” the post reads.

The YouTube account was created on Nov. 25, 2018, originally under the name “jesseboy347 strang,” but was later renamed “JessJessUwU.” The updated profile listed the pronouns she/her, indicating that Jesse Strang later identified as transgender.

The profile image is an anime-style figure overlaid on a transgender pride flag alongside an SKS rifle.

From the thread it looks like it’s a trans kid named Jesse Strang. UNCONFIRMED ATM https://t.co/CjdmrN6s9M pic.twitter.com/QpjznoBwCE

— Laura Love (@Panopticonomy) February 11, 2026

“UwU” is an emoticon that’s supposed to represent a cute face, used widely within so-called “furry” fandom.

The “furry” subculture involves people who have a fascination, often sexual, with anthropomorphic animals.

A similar emoticon, “OwO,” was engraved on one of the bullet casings in the Charlie Kirk assassination; the suspect, Tyler Robinson, was apparently connected to furry fandom and was living with a transgender male lover.

Only one post was public at the time that Juno News checked the alleged shooter’s account: “I’ve been pretty um, aimless,” the post from roughly six months ago read.

If the report is accurate, Strang would be the third prominent transgender-identifying school shooter in North America in only three years.

Audrey Hale, a female who identified as a male named Aiden Hale, killed six at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, before killing herself in March of 2023. In August of 2025, two children were killed during a mass shooting inside the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis as students of the Annunciation Catholic School were attending a school-wide Mass to mark the opening of the academic year; Robert Westman, a transgender-identifying male who had his name legally changed to Robin, was responsible for that shooting.

A 2025 analysis of planned or successfully executed mass school shootings by The Western Journal in the aftermath of the Minneapolis incident found that roughly 40 percent of them since 2020 involved transgender-identifying suspects.

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