The families of the victims of mass shooting in Canada have accused OpenAI over this incident.
Family members of victims of the deadliest mass shooting to date sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman in US court on Wednesday, alleging the company identified the shooter as a credible threat eight months before the attack but did not warn police.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, accuses OpenAI leaders of not alerting police because it would have exposed the volume of violence-related conversations on ChatGPT and potentially jeopardized the company’s path to an initial public offering valued at nearly $1 trillion.
Nine people, many of them children, were killed in a February shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.
A spokesperson for OpenAI called the shootings “a tragedy” and said the company has a zero-tolerance policy for using its tools to aid violence.
“As we have shared with Canadian authorities, we have already strengthened our safeguards, including improving the way ChatGPT responds to crisis signals, connecting people to local support and mental health resources, strengthening the way we assess and escalate potential threats of violence, and improving identification of repeat policy violators,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The cases are part of a growing wave of lawsuits accusing artificial intelligence companies of failing to prevent chatbot interactions that plaintiffs say contribute to self-harm, mental illness and violence.
He appears to be the first person in Canada to allege that ChatGPT played a role in facilitating mass shootings.
Jay Adelson, who is representing the plaintiffs, said he plans to file two dozen lawsuits in the coming weeks against the company on behalf of others affected by the shooting.
Lawsuit claims rejected by OpenAI security team:
According to police, Jesse Van Rutselaar, whose interactions with ChatGPT are at the center of the lawsuits, shot his mother and half-brother at home before killing an educational assistant and five students aged 12 to 13 at his former school on February 10. Van Ruetselaer, who was 18, died by suicide.
The plaintiffs include relatives of those killed at the school and a 12-year-old girl who survived but is in intensive care after being shot three times.
According to a complaint, in June 2025 OpenAI’s automated systems flagged ChatGPT conversations in which the shooter described gun violence scenarios.
Members of the security team recommended contacting police after concluding he posed a credible and imminent threat of harm, the complaint says, citing a February Wall Street Journal article about the company’s internal discussions.
But the lawsuit alleges that Altman and other OpenAI leadership overruled the security team and that police were never called. The lawsuit claims that the shooter’s account was deactivated, but she was able to get a new account and continue using the platform to plan her attack.
Following the publication of the Wall Street Journal article, the company said the account was flagged by systems that identify “abuse of our model in furtherance of violent activities”, but that the issues did not meet its internal criteria for reporting to law enforcement.
Last week, a local Tumbler Ridge newspaper published an open letter in which Altman said he was “deeply sorry” that the account was not flagged to law enforcement.
In a blog published Tuesday, OpenAI said it trains its models to reject requests that “could meaningfully enable violence,” and notifies law enforcement when interactions suggest “an imminent and credible risk of harm to others,” helping mental health experts assess borderline cases. The company said it continually refines its models and detection methods based on usage and expert input.
The lawsuits seek an unspecified amount of damages and a court order requiring OpenAI to improve its security practices, including mandatory law enforcement referral protocols. Adelson said one of the victims originally filed his lawsuit in a Canadian court but dropped it to pursue his claims in California.
OpenAI is facing multiple lawsuits
The lawsuits over the Tumbler Ridge shooting follow multiple lawsuits filed against OpenAI in U.S. state and federal courts in recent months, claiming that ChatGPT facilitated harmful behavior, suicide and, in at least one case, murder-suicide.
The lawsuits, which are still in the early stages, will force courts to grapple with what role AI platforms may play in promoting violence and whether the company can be held liable for its actions or the actions of its users.
OpenAI has refuted the claims in the lawsuits, arguing in the murder-suicide case that the perpetrator had a long history of mental illness.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeyer earlier this month announced a criminal investigation into ChatGPAT’s role in the 2025 shootings at Florida State University.
