Washington woman detained for alleged role in Canada school shooting conspiracy
Melody Bryant of Bellingham, WA, is ordered held pending trial for conspiring in a Canadian school shooting that killed eight. She allegedly aided shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar.
Bellingham woman held without bail in Tumbler Ridge school shooting conspiracy
A Washington state resident has been ordered detained pending trial after being charged with conspiracy in connection with one of the deadliest school shootings in Canadian history, clickorlando.com reports.
Melody Bryant, also known as James Cody Bryant, of Bellingham, Washington, was charged this month in U.S. District Court in Seattle with conspiring to murder people in a foreign country. Investigators allege she provided material assistance to Jesse Van Rootselaar, who killed eight people and wounded 27 at a secondary school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, in February.
According to a criminal complaint, Bryant declined to report Van Rootselaar's plans to authorities, agreed to distribute a livestream of the attack, supplied money, and shared advice on how to delete online messages to conceal the plot.
At a detention hearing Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler ruled that no conditions — including internet restrictions — could adequately protect public safety if Bryant were released before trial.
Bryant has not entered a plea. Her public defender, Greg Murphy, argued for her release, pointing out that federal agents first interviewed Bryant just days after the February attack and allowed her to remain free for the following seven months. Murphy also noted that even after the complaint was filed on Oct. 2, the government waited four more days before taking her into custody.
"There is no evidence that suggests any new danger to the community in the last seven months since the government first interviewed her," Murphy said in court.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg countered that the criminal charge carried a legal presumption of detention. "The defendant was, over the course of months, in daily communication with someone who was planning a mass murder event in British Columbia," Greenberg told the judge. "Bryant chose not to intervene."
Authorities say Van Rootselaar killed her mother and stepbrother at home before driving to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, where she shot and killed five children aged 12 and 13, as well as an educational assistant. Van Rootselaar was later found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Tumbler Ridge is a mountain community in the Canadian Rockies, more than 1,000 kilometres northeast of Vancouver and near the provincial border with Alberta. The school serves approximately 175 students in grades 7 through 12.
Separately, families of victims have filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court against artificial intelligence company OpenAI, seeking to hold the maker of ChatGPT responsible for failing to alert police to the shooter's alarming interactions with the chatbot prior to the attack.
Source: Google News CA — Crime (EN)