Loading page…
The filings put OpenAI’s internal threshold for reporting threats, its account controls and its decision-making chain at the center of a growing legal fight.
Listen to this story
OpenAI now faces 37 federal lawsuits tied to the February Tumbler Ridge shooting after 30 additional plaintiffs alleged the company failed to refer a flagged ChatGPT account to Canadian police. The cases focus on whether internal investigators’ reported recommendation was overridden, but the alleged role of Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane remains unsubstantiated and disputed by OpenAI. The company says it deactivated the first account and did not know about a second until after the attack.
Plaintiffs allege negligence, product liability, aiding and abetting, and that ChatGPT induced the attack; the aiding claim may face early dismissal challenges.
OpenAI says law-enforcement referrals require an imminent, credible risk of serious physical harm and denies political or public-relations considerations influenced safety calls.
Sam Altman apologized for not notifying Canadian police, but the apology does not establish legal liability.
OpenAI is facing 30 new federal lawsuits from students, teachers and a principal connected to the February shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. The complaints allege that OpenAI failed to alert Canadian authorities after ChatGPT activity was flagged as a potential real-world gun-violence threat. They bring the total number of related cases to 37.
The new complaints name OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman. They accuse the company of negligence, aiding and abetting the mass shooting, and product liability, and allege that ChatGPT induced the shooter to carry out the attack. Those are plaintiffs’ allegations, not findings of fact.
The alleged mechanism begins with detection. OpenAI’s automated systems reportedly flagged the alleged shooter’s ChatGPT account in June 2025 for gun-violence activity and planning. The complaints say the company’s Intelligence and Investigations team later concluded the conversations posed a credible threat of gun violence against real people and recommended notifying the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
OpenAI says activity must meet its internal standard of an imminent and credible risk of serious physical harm before it engages law enforcement. It says it deactivated the flagged account, but the alleged shooter created another account; OpenAI says it did not learn of that second account until after the shooting.
The fresh filings make a more specific allegation about who made the call. They say OpenAI’s global affairs team, led by Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane, overruled the recommendation to contact law enforcement and that Altman ratified the decision. Lehane is not named as a defendant, though Altman is.
Altman previously apologized to the Tumbler Ridge community for OpenAI not notifying Canadian police about information regarding the shooter’s potential threat. The apology does not determine whether OpenAI is legally liable, but it places the reporting decision at the center of the cases.
British Columbia’s chief coroner has also directed an inquest into the deaths. It will publicly examine the circumstances, assess systemic and procedural issues, and make evidence-based recommendations; its timing will be announced after the investigative phase concludes.
Editorial analysis
The cases frame the central operational challenge as the handoff between detecting dangerous behavior and acting outside a platform. The allegation is not only that ChatGPT was misused; it is that a safety escalation was identified, then stopped before reaching police. OpenAI’s stated threshold requires an imminent and credible risk, while the plaintiffs contend the company had enough information sooner. Discovery could make the difference: records of the recommendation, the authority to overrule it and the standard applied to this account would show whether the dispute is about a difficult judgment call, an organizational failure, or neither.
Loading discussion...
Be the first to share a perspective or an experience.
Reader comments
Newest comments first. Replies stay oldest first.