Juno News reviewed the U.S. affidavit on the alleged accomplice (identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar and later James Cody Bryant) of Jesse Strang, the trans mass shooter who killed eight people (mostly children) and seriously injured two others in the February school shooting at Tumbler Ridge, B.C.
The affidavit reveals that Strang had been communicating with the now-arrested and charged 30-year-old man who identified as a trans woman, James Cody Bryant, for at least six months before the planned massacre.
The affidavit reveals that Bryant acknowledged that he was the “only one who [could] stop” the attack, but still provided financial support, encouragement and advice to Strang and had prior knowledge that Strang was going to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School to murder children.
The Affidavit reveals never-before-seen photos of the shooter, including the weapon used in the killing, which was decorated with transgender ideology flags.
Juno News asked the RCMP why it was only after the U.S. decided to charge the individual involved in counselling the shooter that the photos were released and whether the photos were left unpublished to conceal how the shooter’s trans-identity played a role in motivating the massacre.
“Throughout a complex investigation, the RCMP may withhold certain information from the public to preserve the integrity of investigative and judicial processes,” Staff Sergeant Kris Clark, the senior media relations officer for the BC RCMP, said in an email.
“In this case, the firearms in question are currently subject to a publication ban in Canada, preventing the RCMP from releasing information about them until the court determines what information may be disclosed.”
Clark also said that the photographs were released through a court process involving charges laid against Bryant, but the RCMP “could not previously release them because of legislative restrictions and ongoing court proceedings.”
The affidavit shows communications between Bryant and Strang through the communications app Discord over a six-month period and includes interviews right after the shooting with Bryant at his home, where he admitted to much in the affidavit, but refused to give the FBI permission to search his Discord communications.
The court documents also reveal that Discord informed the FBI about the communications and the identity of Bryant, who went under the alias “meldritch_”, shortly after the attack. The private messages were later accessed through an FBI warrant on March 13, 2026.
When asked why the communications weren’t immediately reported to authorities, if the planning was flagged by Discord’s internal AI systems, and whether the company planned to change its policies to attempt to prevent a similar attack in the future, a spokesperson for Discord said the company doesn’t go through private messages.
“We share in the Tumbler Ridge community’s grief and extend our condolences to the families and to everyone impacted by this tragedy. Discord strongly condemns violence, and we have a zero-tolerance policy for anyone who supports, promotes, or engages in violent acts,” the spokesperson said.
“Following our investigation, we proactively disclosed relevant information to law enforcement agencies and removed the suspect’s account for violating our policies. We will continue to work in close coordination with authorities as the investigation continues.”
Discord said that within hours of the attack, they identified an account they believed was associated with the shooter and discovered the “1:1 messages”
“No communication about the shooting took place through a public Discord server or through group direct messages. We can also confirm we did not receive any user reports related to this event,” the spokesperson said.
“In this case, the activity took place in 1:1 private direct messages, and similar to other communications services, we don’t proactively scan every private message (Discord does, however, proactively scan and remove known and novel instances of child sexual abuse material).”
The spokesperson said the company “continues to work closely with the law enforcement agencies leading the investigation.”
The affidavit reveals that Bryant provided Strang with financial support to buy shoes the shooter thought would look “cute” for the attack, sent money for trans-stickers that Bryant thought would be “funny to see in photos of the incident,” as well as offered to publish a livestream of the killings from Strang’s Twitch account.
“Throughout the six months prior to the murders, Bryant and Van Rootselaar discussed the importance and logistics of livestreaming the attack. Van Rootselaar was insistent that the murders be livestreamed, recorded, and broadcast over the internet for the public to view,” the affidavit reads.
“Bryant agreed to record the livestream and disseminate it over the internet. Bryant also assisted Van Rootselaar in conducting test livestreams to ensure the murders would be captured by the cameras Van Rootselaar would be wearing.”
Strang, identified as “Van Rootselaar” in the affidavit and by authorities, even stressed that if the livestream isn’t seen by an audience, then “people can be detached from the gravity of how I feel.”
According to police, the livestream on Twitch was only up for 20 seconds before it stopped working. Bryant acknowledged that Strang had just murdered two of his family members and that he was going to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School to kill as many people as possible, and still advised Strang on how to start his recently murdered mother’s vehicle to commit more killings at the school.
When asked whether to shut down the livestream, if the company reported the crime as soon as it happened and if the company was currently working with law enforcement, Megan Kay, a senior communications manager for Twitch, told Juno News that the company is indeed working with law enforcement.
“Although we do not comment on the specifics of active legal matters, we can confirm that Twitch is cooperating with local law enforcement regarding this matter,” Kay said in an email.
“Our goal, always, is to prevent violative content from being streamed on Twitch in the first place, and we’ve invested heavily in machine learning tools that detect content that could contain graphic violence.”
She said Twitch is an active member of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism and abides by “their incident response protocols,” as well as regularly participates in ongoing working groups.
“We have been coordinating closely with them on this issue since it occurred,” she said. “Ensuring the safety of our community is Twitch’s highest priority.”
The Discord chats show that Bryant was willing to buy a lighter for a makeshift bomb that Strang lit off during the incident to provide a smoke screen to confuse law enforcement into not knowing who the victims were and who the active shooter was.
After Strang mentioned to Bryant that he regretted not putting “glitter” in the explosive device, Bryant joked, saying “lol. Molten glitter.”
Bryant acknowledged that he “could save lives, I guess,” but decided to keep Strang’s murderous plans a secret to avoid “snitching” on him.
Strang even said that if Bryant didn’t livestream the attack, he doesn’t “wanna do it.”
When Strang said, “I don’t think someone could stop me without a gun on their own,” Bryant joked that he “might be the only one who can at this point”, yet still didn’t report Strang’s plans to law enforcement.
Throughout the communications, Bryant repeatedly expressed concern that he would be held responsible if the communications were ever made public and noted that he was more concerned about either of them getting caught than he was about people getting shot “in another country.”
“Shooting in another country is like, not something that would affect my mental, losing you is the more impactful thing,” Bryant told Strang.
The two even discussed Bryant smuggling a 3D-printed “Tec-9 gun kit” into Canada.
During the months-long communications, Bryant gave Strang advice on how he could achieve a higher “kill-death ratio” to achieve Strang’s goal of being the most prolific mass school shooter in Canada.
Bryant also recommended that Strang commit the murders at a Church or mall, but ultimately didn’t report the crime to authorities after Strang informed him of his plans to target his old high school, which he said, “messed up mine and another of my family members’ education.”
Other photos shared in the affidavit included the outfit Strang intended to use, including the shoes that Bryant used that authorities confirmed were worn during the attack.
Bryant is currently on trial for conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country.
According to the FBI interview with Bryant, the 30-year-old trans accomplice of Strang had met the shooter three years prior to the attack on Omegle, a video chat website that pairs individuals randomly with others globally. This means Bryant began communicating with Strang when Strang was likely just 15 years old.
The RCMP are so corrupt, woke and politically controlled by the Liberals that if it was not for the FBI involvment to additionally investigate this shooting, this information and likely the level of RCMP investigation of this case would never have happened....The RCMP likely would never have investigated or released all of this information to the Canadian public without the FBIs involvement in the case....The RCMP are a massively politically controlled and corrupt police force......
So, we can expect that the anti-gun lobby is going to run with these photos and push to ban the two separate weapons depicted, right? Also, notice how this monster even acknowledges that someone else with a gun could stop him. Maybe we ought to consider that when the government constantly says "self-defence isn't a reason to own a firearm".