Canadian Province Files Lawsuit Against OpenAI Over School Shooting

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A woman takes photos in front of the OpenAI logo at Bharat Mandapam during the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, India, on February 17, 2026. — Reuters

Montreal: British Columbia announced Tuesday that it is preparing to file a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company of failing to report violent activity involving ChatGPT by the individual responsible for a mass school shooting in the western Canadian province.

OpenAI had already banned an account associated with Jesse Van Rootselaar in June 2025, eight months before the 18-year-old transgender woman carried out the shooting that left eight people dead at her home and a school in the small mining town of Tumbler Ridge.

Families affected by the February tragedy have previously sued the US tech company in a California court. Now, British Columbia says it is working with those families to prepare a separate case, with lawyers retained both in Canada and California.

Attorney General Niki Sharma stated that the province aims to hold OpenAI and its leadership “jointly accountable for their failure to alert law enforcement about the violent prompts made on its ChatGPT platform by the perpetrator before the incident in Tumbler Ridge.”

“British Columbia has a history of holding large corporations accountable when their actions cause harm to individuals and communities,” she added.

In April, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman issued an apology to residents of Tumbler Ridge, expressing his regret in a public letter for not informing authorities sooner about the banned account linked to the shooter.

“I understand that words may never fully make up for what happened, but I believe an apology is a necessary step to acknowledge the damage and the irreversible loss your community has experienced,” Altman wrote.

Jesse Van Rootselaar murdered her mother and brother at their home before heading to the local high school, where she shot and killed five students and a teacher. She died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after police entered the building.