A Bellingham resident was arrested and charged Tuesday in connection with a February school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., where nine people died, including the shooter.
James Cody Bryant, 30, was charged with conspiring to murder people in a foreign country. According to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar killed two family members and then carried out a mass shooting at a high school in the remote Canadian town on Feb. 10, killing five students and an educational assistant before killing herself.
Officials said Bryant spoke daily" with Van Rootselaar in the six months leading up to the attack, helping Van Rootselaar coordinate and enable a "livestream" broadcast of the shooting. The pair met three years earlier on the now defunct video chat website Omegle and then started talking on Discord in August 2025, according to a 41-page criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court.
Bryant provided Van Rootselaar with money and tactical advice on how to increase the body count in a mass shooting. At the same time, there were periods when Bryant tried to discourage Van Rootselaar, especially when the conversation turned to targeting a school.
Mike Herrington, the special agent in charge of the Seattle FBI field office, said Bryant had numerous opportunities to report the plot to law enforcement, but did not.
"Instead of de-escalating or reporting to law enforcement, Bryant continued to enable the shooter over the months they discussed these plans," Herrington said at a news conference Tuesday at the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle.
"Without Bryant's misplaced loyalty and willingness to operate the livestream, we don't ultimately know if the shooter would have gone through with the crime," Herrington said. "Bryant even admits to being maybe the only one who could stop the shooter."
Moreover, Herrington said Bryant helped Van Rootselaar travel to the school to commit the murders. Knowing that Van Rootselaar had already killed her mother and 11-year-old half brother, Bryant talked Van Rootselaar through how to start her stalled car on the way to the attack.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials said they reached out to the FBI after one of the online platforms the suspects used reached out to them.
“I read a lot of court documents, including some that discuss incredibly heinous acts of violence,” Herrington said. “But this complaint was particularly difficult to read in part because of the casual tone these two individuals used when discussing the mass taking of innocent lives.”
Acting U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd said Bryant also sent Van Rootselaar money to buy items needed to carry out the attack, including a lighter to detonate an explosive, and suggested what gun to use to increase the carnage.
One of the items Van Rootselaar bought was a "cute" pair of loafers that she said she wanted to wear during the killings, and did, according to the complaint.
Bryant also allegedly told Van Rootselaar how they could hide their plot using virtual private networks to stream the shooting.
Herrington said Bryant stayed awake after working overnight "to make sure this horrific act could be widely viewed online.
The livestream video failed after about 20 seconds, officials said.
Bryant is in custody and could face up to life in prison, if convicted as charged.
British Columbia sued OpenAI in September after learning Van Rootselaar talked to a chatbot about her mental health struggles and plans to carry out the deadly attack. The province alleged the company had documentation that could have prevented the shooting.
More than 30 lawsuits have also been filed by survivors, prompting the company’s chief executive, Sam Altman, to issue an open-letter apology.
Floyd said an investigation is ongoing into whether others in Western Washington may have known about the attack. Canadian officials say they have a similar ongoing investigation in British Columbia.
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