Washington resident charged with conspiracy in school shooting is ordered detained
SEATTLE -- A Washington state resident charged with conspiracy in one of the worst school shootings in Canada’s history has been ordered detained pending further hearings in the case.
Melody Bryant, also known as James Cody Bryant, of Bellingham, Washington, was charged this month with conspiring to murder people in a foreign country. Investigators said she provided assistance to Jesse Van Rootselaar, who killed eight people and wounded 27 in the mountain community of Tumbler Ridge in February.
Bryant declined to report Van Rootselaar's plans, agreed to distribute a livestream of the attack, provided money and shared advice on how to delete online messages to keep the plot a secret, according to a criminal complaint filed this month in U.S. District Court in Seattle.
At a detention hearing Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler said she did not believe there were any conditions — such as internet restrictions — that could ensure the safety of the community if Bryant were to be released pending trial.
Bryant has not entered a plea, and her public defender, Greg Murphy, said in court he has not yet been provided with evidence needed to evaluate the government's case against her.
Murphy argued for her release pending trial, noting that federal agents first interviewed Bryant just days after the attack and allowed her to remain free in the ensuing seven months.
Even after filing the complaint against her on Oct. 2, the government waited for four days to take her into custody, Murphy noted.
“There is no evidence that suggests any new danger to the communty in the last seven months since the government first interviewed her,” Murphy said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg told the judge that the criminal charge carried a presumption that Bryant would be detained.
“The defendant was, over the course of months, in daily communication with someone who was planning a mass murder event in British Columbia,” Greenberg said. “Bryant chose not to intervene.”
Authorities say Van Rootselaar killed her mother and stepbrother at home before attacking a nearby secondary school in Tumbler Ridge, killing five children ages 12 and 13 as well as an educational assistant. Van Rootselaar was later found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Tumbler Ridge in the Canadian Rockies is more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Vancouver, British Columbia, near the provincial border with Alberta. The provincial government website lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as having 175 students from Grades 7 to 12.
The families of victims are suing artificial intelligence company OpenAI in U.S. federal court, seeking to hold the ChatGPT maker responsible for failing to alert police to the shooter’s alarming interactions with the chatbot.
