Tumbler Ridge Survivors File 30 Lawsuits Against OpenAI Over Shooter's ChatGPT Account
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Sep 4
Tumbler Ridge Survivors File 30 Lawsuits Against OpenAI Over Shooter's ChatGPT Account
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Sep 4
Summary
Thirty new lawsuits accuse OpenAI of failing to alert police after it shut down the Tumbler Ridge shooter's ChatGPT account eight months before the Feb. 10 school attack.
The filings expand a case launched in April, when victims' families sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, arguing the company could have helped prevent the massacre.
OpenAI has said its automated systems banned Jesse Van Rootselaar's account in June 2025 for a policy violation but found no credible, imminent threat that met its threshold for contacting law enforcement.
The suits cite a Wall Street Journal report saying some employees urged notifying the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but company leaders allegedly overruled members of the internal safety team.
Van Rootselaar, 18, killed her mother, her 11-year-old brother, five students and an educational assistant in Tumbler Ridge before dying by suicide, making the reporting decision central to a widening legal test of AI firms' duty to warn.