Province of BC Sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over Tumbler Ridge School Shooting

British Columbia has filed a lawsuit in San Francisco federal court naming OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, arguing that a February mass school shooting in Tumbler Ridge that killed nine people - mostly children - could have been prevented if the company had notified police after flagging the shooter’s ChatGPT conversations. The suit seeks damages to fund recovery and an order forcing changes to how the company handles conversations that could lead to violence. It recounts that the shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar, was flagged by OpenAI’s safety team for discussions about gun violence, that an account was later deactivated but the user opened another, and that Altman wrote to the community promising reforms he did not implement, according to British Columbia’s attorney general Niki Sharma.

The complaint relies on whistleblower reports that safety staff in June 2025 recommended alerting law enforcement but were overruled by leadership. It details local harms - demolition and replacement of the school, mental‑health costs, and catastrophic injuries to a survivor - and notes more than 30 related lawsuits by families in California plus a separate Florida state lawsuit accusing OpenAI of misrepresenting ChatGPT’s safety. OpenAI disputes the claims, says it trains models to refuse requests that would meaningfully enable violence, and maintains it notifies authorities when conversations indicate an imminent, credible risk; a company spokesperson called the shooting an unspeakable tragedy.