Washington state man charged with conspiring in deadly Canadian school shooting

Federal authorities in the United States arrested James Cody Bryant, 30, a resident of Washington state, on Tuesday and charged him with conspiracy to murder people in a foreign country, according to multiple outlets including Reuters, Arab News, The Wall Street Journal and UPI. The charge stems from his alleged role in assisting a Canadian teenager who carried out a mass shooting at a school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, in February, according to the Department of Justice.

Prosecutors allege Bryant was in repeated contact with the shooter, identified by the Washington Examiner and Fox News as Jesse Van Rootselaar, and provided assistance ahead of the attack. According to Fox News, Bryant allegedly sent money, offered advice, and agreed to livestream the shooting rather than alert law enforcement. Arab News similarly reported that Bryant provided advice and offered to live stream the attack. The Guardian reported, in a single-source claim, that the plan was allegedly developed with the help of ChatGPT.

Outlets differ on the death toll from the shooting itself. USA Today and the Jerusalem Post reported six people were killed. NBC News and Fox News put the toll at eight, including schoolchildren. The Washington Examiner reported nine dead, including the shooter. These discrepancies are not resolved across the supplied reporting.

The conspiracy charge against Bryant carries a potential penalty of up to life in prison, according to Arab News and the Jerusalem Post. The Washington Examiner reported that Bryant is from Bellingham, Washington, a detail not provided by other outlets. Newsweek and several right-leaning outlets, including Townhall, The Daily Wire, Breitbart, RedState and Fox News, reported that Bryant identifies as transgender; Newsweek specifically described the FBI as linking a

second transgender woman

to the Tumbler Ridge massacre, a characterization not used in the left-leaning coverage supplied.

How the coverage differed

Left-leaning outlets, including ABC News, USA Today, HuffPost, NBC News and the Associated Press, led primarily with the fact of the arrest and Bryant's alleged conspiracy with the shooter, generally omitting any reference to Bryant's gender identity. The Guardian was the only outlet in the supplied material to report that the plan was developed with help from ChatGPT, a detail absent from all other coverage across the political spectrum.

Center outlets split in emphasis. Reuters, Arab News, UPI, The Wall Street Journal and BBC News focused on the arrest and the conspiracy charge, with Arab News providing the most legal detail, including the potential life sentence. Newsweek, by contrast, led its headline with Bryant's transgender identity, framing him as a

second transgender woman

connected to the shooting, a framing not echoed by its center-leaning peers.

Right-leaning outlets gave the transgender angle significantly more prominence than left-leaning outlets. Townhall, The Daily Wire, Breitbart and RedState all foregrounded Bryant's gender identity in their headlines, while Fox News combined that detail with specific allegations that Bryant sent money, offered advice and agreed to livestream the attack. The Washington Examiner provided additional specifics, including Bryant's hometown of Bellingham and a death toll of nine including the shooter, details not matched elsewhere. Right-leaning outlets as a group devoted more coverage volume to this story than left-leaning or center outlets, with at least eleven right-leaning outlets supplied compared to six on the left and seven in the center.

Outlets also disagreed on casualty figures without acknowledging the discrepancy: USA Today and the Jerusalem Post cited six deaths, NBC News and Fox News cited eight, and the Washington Examiner cited nine. No outlet in the supplied material explained the differing counts.

What is still unclear

The supplied material does not clarify the exact death toll from the Tumbler Ridge shooting, with figures ranging from six to nine across different outlets. It also does not establish whether the claim that ChatGPT was used in planning the attack, reported only by The Guardian, has been corroborated by investigators or other outlets.