While no one was hurt, the spectre of school shootings came to Campbell River on March 1, 2026. It was merely a threat: arguments escalating to the point that a youth posted a picture of himself holding a BB gun and ‘threatening others who had threatened a friend.’ 

Being shot by a BB gun is rarely fatal, but often hurts.  

The Campbell River RCMP took the threat seriously. Their press release states: 

“On March 1^st, 2026 The Campbell River RCMP were made aware of a series of online threats between a group of youths that escalated to one of the youths posting a picture of himself with a gun and threatening others who had threatened a friend.”

“The RCMP have investigated. The gun in question has been seized and determined to be a BB gun.”  

“Due to heavy prevalence of social media in the community, an argument between a small group took off like wildfire with rumours of heavy police presence at one of the schools on the night of March 1^st, 2026 and rumours of school shootings at both Carihi and Timberline High Schools.” 

“There is no credible threat to staff or students at the schools and School District 72 has released an official notice for the school community.” 

This incident comes less than a month after the shootings at Tumbler Ridge – in which 8 were killed and 27 wounded. 

There have been no known shootings in BC prior to that, and more than  600,000 kindergarten to grade 12 students in school every year.  

Twenty-six years have passed since the Columbine shootings, in Colorado, which left 13 students dead. While still far from common, as of February 17, there have been at least six school shootings in the United States so far this year and at least 83 incidents in 2024. To put this in context, there were 49.5 million K to 12 students in the United States during 2023. 

The police report continues, “The local RCMP understands the fear that online threats and rumours create, especially in the wake of the tragedy in Tumbler Ridge. However, it is also important to receive information from credible sources and although they are extremely quick at spreading information, local Rant and Rave pages and Snapchat groups leave a lot to be desired when it comes to information credibility.”

“Police ask that if someone does locate information believed to be a threat online they do two things immediately.”

1. Contact your local police 
2. Report the account to the social media provider. 

“Campbell River RCMP school liaison program will be attending both schools on March 2^nd, 2026 for followup.”   

Top image credit: Screenshot of Carihi Secondary School – courtesy Google Earth

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