U.S. authorities announced the arrest of a 30-year-old Washington state man in connection with the school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, in February.
The individual, identified by authorities as James Cody Bryant, was arrested Tuesday morning in Bellingham, Washington, on charges of conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice. The attack on a high school in the small town of Tumbler Ridge in February was Canada’s deadliest school shooting in decades, leaving eight people dead and dozens injured.
Bryant was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday afternoon in Seattle, according to a news release issued before the announcement. CNN has not yet confirmed whether Bryant has legal representation.
Bryant was allegedly “in repeated contact with” the 18-year-old Canadian shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar, “offering advice, sending money and even agreeing to livestream the horrific event” on Twitch, Neil Floyd, the acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington, said at a news conference in Seattle.
The money Bryant gave the shooter totaled a little more than $100, mostly to buy a lighter and a pair of shoes that Van Rootselaar “wanted to have when she was going on this killing spree,” Floyd said. The two discussed sending weapons to Van Rootselaar, but Bryant was uncomfortable and refused, according to a court complaint filed Friday.
Bryant began an online friendship with Van Rootselaar after meeting on the video chat site Omegle three years before the shooting, authorities said. An affidavit in the complaint includes excerpts from chat logs between Bryant and Van Rootselaar on the Discord website.
“I’ve read a lot of court documents, including some that talk about incredibly heinous acts of violence, but this complaint was particularly difficult to read,” FBI agent Mike Harrington said at Tuesday’s news conference, “in part because of the casual tone these two individuals used when discussing the planned mass deaths of innocent people.”
In one exchange, Van Rootselaar allegedly told Bryant that she wanted to “avoid going to school” but that “there are so many reasons why it’s ideal.” According to the affidavit, Bryant responded that attacking a hotel “sounds like a good idea.”
After Van Rootselaar killed two members of his family, Bryant allegedly gave the attacker advice on how to fix a car that wouldn’t start on the way to school.
Canadian and U.S. authorities said Bryant and Van Rootselaar, who died in the shooting, were trans women, although authorities used male and female pronouns interchangeably to describe the two throughout the news conference.
Assistant Commissioner Elija Rain of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Canadian authorities contacted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security shortly after the shooting, based on “information from one of the online platforms used by the shooter.”
“As has been alleged, instead of deescalating the situation or reporting to law enforcement, Bryant continued to allow the shooter to discuss these plans for months,” Harrington said. “In addition to providing money, technical advice, and special items for use in the shooting, Bryant agreed to record a live stream of the attack and broadcast it in a manner that would maximize notoriety of the shooter.”
It was previously unclear whether anyone other than Van Rootselaar was involved in planning the massacre.
Seven victims’ families sued tech company OpenAI in April after reports emerged that the shooter used ChatGPT to plan the attack. The week before the lawsuit was filed, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman apologized to the community for not alerting law enforcement after Van Rootselaar’s account was banned.
CNN’s Josh Campbell and Paula Newton contributed reporting. This is a developing story and will be updated.
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