Families of victims in a February school shooting in Canada filed lawsuits Wednesday morning alleging that OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, were complicit in the gunman’s planning to carry out the attack that killed eight people.
The lawsuit stems from a shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, in which 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who police said was biologically male and transitioned to female, killed six children and two adults before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Altman issued a public apology to the Tumbler Ridge community last week, admitting his company did not alert authorities to the shooter’s alarming conversations with ChatGPT even after staff flagged the account internally.
Despite the CEO’s contrition, seven families sued and accused Altman and OpenAI of negligence, wrongful death, and product liability, arguing the company’s chatbot, ChatGPT, played a role in escalating the suspect’s violent ideation.
According to court filings, OpenAI’s systems flagged troubling conversations from the suspect months before the attack. The company said it banned the account in June 2025, but it did not notify law enforcement of Van Rootselaar’s behavior, despite internal discussions about whether to do so.
Van Rootselaar later created a new account and continued planning the attack, which included killing family members before targeting a school and ultimately dying by suicide.
In the lawsuit filed by Lance Younge and Jennifer Geary, whose 12-year-old daughter was shot by Van Rootselaar, the family explained that it only found out about the shooter’s conversations with ChatGPT because of an article published in the Wall Street Journal.
“Sadly, the victims didn’t learn this because OpenAI was forthcoming, but because its own employees leaked it to the Wall Street Journal after they could no longer stomach the company’s silence,” the court filing said. “OpenAI knew the Shooter was planning the attack and, after a contentious internal debate, made the conscious decision not to warn authorities.”
Other filings argue OpenAI ignored its own safety team’s recommendations, allegedly out of concern for reputational risks and operational burdens. Some lawsuits claim the chatbot “validated and amplified” dangerous behavior and failed to shut down conversations involving violence.
Cia Edmonds filed on behalf of her 12-year-old daughter Maya Gebala, who remains in the hospital due to brain and skull injuries from the shooting, and acknowledged Altman’s apology in a statement, calling it “soulless.”
“Tumbler Ridge sees your ‘apology,’ Sam. We do not accept it,” Edmonds wrote.
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The damages the families are suing for were not specified in the court filings.
OpenAI has said it has since strengthened safeguards, including better detection of threats, improved responses to users in crisis, and enhanced processes for preventing potential violence. The company maintains it has a zero-tolerance policy for using its tools to facilitate harm.