The Canadian province of British Columbia has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the California-based artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, alleging that the firm's failure to alert law enforcement contributed to one of Canada's worst mass shootings. The suit, filed Monday in federal court in San Francisco, names OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, as defendants.
On 10 February 2026, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar shot and killed eight people — including her mother and stepbrother at their home — before travelling to a secondary school in Tumbler Ridge, a small town in northeastern British Columbia, where she killed five students aged 12 and 13 and an educational assistant, then died by suicide. Twenty-five others were wounded. The school has since been demolished, with the province absorbing the costs of a replacement facility, mental health care, and broader community recovery.
Central to the lawsuit is the allegation that OpenAI's own safety team had flagged Van Rootselaar's ChatGPT account as early as June 2025, after she used the platform to discuss violent scenarios involving firearms. Safety team members recommended contacting police, but Altman and other senior OpenAI leaders overruled them, according to the lawsuit, which cites whistleblowers who spoke to the Wall Street Journal following the shooting. Van Rootselaar's account was deactivated, but she was able to create a new one and continued using the platform to plan her attack. OpenAI has said the flagged activity did not meet its internal criteria for reporting to law enforcement, and that it trains its models to refuse requests that could "meaningfully enable violence."
In April, Altman published an open letter to the Tumbler Ridge community expressing that he was "deeply sorry" OpenAI had not contacted authorities. He pledged reforms, but the province says those promises were never fulfilled despite repeated attempts by British Columbia's Attorney General, Niki Sharma, to engage with the company. "This case highlights the urgent need for strong national safeguards for artificial intelligence technologies and online platforms," Sharma said. The province is seeking financial compensation for emergency response and recovery costs, as well as a court order compelling OpenAI to overhaul how it identifies and responds to threatening conversations on its platform.
The provincial lawsuit follows more than 30 separate suits filed by victims' families, survivors, and others affected by the attack. British Columbia is not the first government body to take legal action against the company: Florida sued OpenAI in June, becoming the first US state to do so, accusing the firm of misrepresenting the safety of ChatGPT after similar concerns arose around other violent incidents. OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri described the Tumbler Ridge shooting as "an unspeakable tragedy" and said the company "remains committed to working collaboratively with government and law enforcement officials." The case is being heard in California, where OpenAI is headquartered.