Washington Man Charged With Helping Plan and Livestream Canada School Massacre That Killed 8

Federal prosecutors in Seattle charged a Washington state man Tuesday with helping plan a Canadian school shooting that killed eight people, saying he had the chance to stop it and chose instead to help broadcast it.

James Cody Bryant, 30, was arrested Tuesday morning in Bellingham, north of Seattle, according to the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, Neil Floyd. Bryant faces one federal count of conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country, a charge that carries up to life in prison. Court records reviewed by Reuters did not list an attorney for Bryant as of Tuesday, and he has not entered a plea.

The case centers on the Feb. 10, 2026, attack at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia, carried out by 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, a former student at the school. According to NBC News and the Department of Justice, Van Rootselaar killed her mother and 11-year-old stepbrother at home before driving to the school and killing five students, three 12-year-old girls and two boys, and a staff member, before dying by suicide.

What prosecutors say Bryant did

Floyd told reporters Bryant "had the information and ability to alert law enforcement, and even discussed that possibility with the shooter, but he chose not to. Instead, he encouraged and offered assistance to a murderer."

According to the criminal complaint, cited by Reuters and NBC News, Bryant sent Van Rootselaar money, including funds for shoes to wear during the attack, gave advice on target locations and weapons, and helped her start her car so she could drive to the school after already killing two family members. FBI Seattle Special Agent in Charge W. Mike Herrington said Bryant also agreed to operate a livestream of the shooting on Twitch to "maximize notoriety for the shooter," staying awake after an overnight work shift to run the broadcast. The stream lasted about 20 seconds before Twitch shut it down, Floyd said.

"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, adding that Van Rootselaar "did not have many followers on social media" and was depending on Bryant to amplify the stream. Prosecutors say Bryant admitted to investigators he was "maybe the only one who could have stopped the shooter."

How they knew each other

Bryant and Van Rootselaar met roughly three years before the attack through Omegle, the now-defunct random video chat service, and kept in touch over Discord, Herrington said. Their contact turned into discussions of violence over at least six months, he said, describing the complaint as difficult to read "because of the casual tone these two individuals used when discussing the mass taking of innocent lives that was being planned."

Herrington confirmed both Bryant and Van Rootselaar identified as transgender, with Bryant identifying as female. He said investigators found no indication that their gender identities were connected to the planning or motive for the attack, nor any indication the two ever met in person. Canadian police previously said Van Rootselaar, who was born male, had a history of mental health problems.

Where the coverage splits

Outlets reporting Tuesday's arrest do not agree on the death toll. Fox News, the New York Post and NBC News, each citing the Justice Department, put the number at eight: five students, one staff member, and Van Rootselaar's mother and stepbrother. Reuters, in a dispatch carried by KFGO, described "nine people, primarily children" killed, but its own account named only eight victims, matching the other outlets. Al Jazeera's report, citing the Associated Press, put the number of additional people wounded at 27, far higher than the "two other children" NBC News said were shot and seriously wounded. Canada's Global News, reporting from the ground in British Columbia, identified the staff member killed as an "educational assistant" rather than the "teacher" described by Fox News and NBC News.

An unresolved thread: the OpenAI lawsuit

Al Jazeera also reported that British Columbia's government sued OpenAI in a California court in September, alleging the company's ChatGPT product played a role in the shooting, separate from the case against Bryant. That lawsuit remains pending and raises its own unresolved question about what responsibility, if any, AI companies bear when their tools are used by people planning violence.

A reasonable defense argument, not yet tested in court, is that providing moral support and advice in a chat and failing to report a friend's plan is different from the kind of active, intentional agreement a conspiracy charge requires. Prosecutors counter that Bryant went well beyond silence, sending money, giving tactical instructions, helping the shooter reach a second crime scene, and lining up a livestream specifically to spread the attack's reach. Bryant's first court appearance in Seattle came the same afternoon as his arrest. No trial date has been set.