British Columbia sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over Tumbler Ridge school shooting

British Columbia has sued OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, in a U.S. federal court in San Francisco, alleging the company could have prevented a mass school shooting in the province by alerting law enforcement after its own safety team flagged the shooter's ChatGPT activity.

The attack took place on 10 February in Tumbler Ridge, a small community in northeastern British Columbia. Eighteen-year-old Jessie Van Rootselaar shot her mother and stepbrother at home, then went to her former school and killed an educational assistant and five students aged 12 and 13 before dying by suicide, according to police. The BBC reports eight people killed; the Guardian reports nine. The difference is whether the shooter is counted among the dead.

Van Rootselaar's ChatGPT conversations about gun violence were flagged by OpenAI's safety team in June 2025, months before the attack. The lawsuit says safety team members recommended contacting police, but Altman and other OpenAI leadership overruled them — a claim the lawsuit attributes to OpenAI whistleblowers who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. The company deactivated her account, but she opened a new one and continued using the platform to plan the attack.

Altman published an open letter to the community in April saying he was "deeply sorry" that OpenAI had not contacted law enforcement. He promised reforms, the lawsuit says, but never followed through, despite efforts by British Columbia Attorney General Niki Sharma to engage the company.

Sharma said the province filed in California because the decision not to report Van Rootselaar's account was made there. Any damages won would go toward rebuilding the school, which is being demolished. The province is also seeking a court order directing changes to how OpenAI handles ChatGPT conversations that could lead to violence.

Sharma said she has not read the contents of Van Rootselaar's ChatGPT conversations. "We have asked OpenAI to disclose these chats. They have refused," she said, according to CBC. "We should all be asking them: Why?"

OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri called the shooting "an unspeakable tragedy" and said the company "remains committed to working collaboratively with government and law enforcement officials." After the Wall Street Journal reporting, the company said Van Rootselaar's account was flagged by systems that identify misuse of its models for violent activities, but that the conversations did not meet OpenAI's internal criteria for reporting to law enforcement.

More than 30 family members of victims have filed separate lawsuits in California accusing the company of opting out of a chance to prevent the shooting. OpenAI has said it trains its models to refuse requests that could "meaningfully enable violence" and notifies law enforcement when conversations suggest "an imminent and credible risk of harm to others."