By Daphne Psaledakis
WASHINGTON, Oct 6 (Reuters) – US authorities arrested a person in Washington state on Tuesday who they accuse of providing advice and offering to live stream a deadly mass shooting carried out last year in Canada.
James Cody Bryant, 30, was detained on a charge of conspiracy to murder people in a foreign country in connection to the shooting at Tumbler Ridge, according to the Department of Justice. The charge carries a penalty of up to life in prison.
Bryant was in repeated contact with the shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar, offering technical advice, sending money, including for the shoes to be used during the attack, and agreeing to live stream the event, law enforcement officials said.
“James Cody Bryant had the information and ability to alert law enforcement and even discussed that possibility with the shooter, but he chose not to, and he encouraged and offered assistance to a murderer,” Acting US Attorney for the Western District of Washington Neil Floyd told reporters.
Court records did not immediately list an attorney for Bryant.
Nine people, primarily children, were killed in the school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, in one of Canada’s worst mass shootings.
Van Rootselaar, 18, who had suffered a series of mental health problems, killed her mother and stepbrother at home before shooting dead a teacher and five young students at her former school in Tumbler Ridge, a settlement of around 2,400 in the Canadian Rockies, according to police. Van Rootselaar, who police said was born a male but began identifying as a woman, then died by suicide.
Bryant, who officials said they understood was also born a man but identified as female, agreed to live stream a feed of the attack and broadcast it “in a way that would maximize notoriety for the shooter,” Mike Herrington, FBI Seattle special agent in charge, said.
The live stream on Twitch was shut down after about 20 seconds, officials said.
“Without Bryant’s misplaced loyalty and willingness to operate the live stream, we don’t ultimately know if the shooter would have gone through with the crime,” Herrington said.
“We certainly know the shooter was concerned that not enough people would see the live stream without Bryant broadcasting it, and was depending on Bryant to amplify the live stream because the shooter did not have many followers on social media.”
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; Additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward; editing by Michelle Nichols and David Gregorio)
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