ChatGPT as school shooting support: 30 more lawsuits filed against OpenAI
More victims of a school massacre are suing OpenAI. The company allegedly failed to inform authorities about the shooter’s violent intentions despite warnings.
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Following the massacre at a school in Tumbler Ridge, Canada, in February of this year, 30 more lawsuits have been filed against OpenAI. The plaintiffs accuse the company of not alerting the authorities despite concrete internal warnings about the perpetrator’s propensity for violence. Together with seven cases already filed in April, there are now 37 lawsuits pending against the ChatGPT operator.
The perpetrator allegedly had conversations with the AI chatbot ChatGPT eight months before the attack that were so conspicuous that OpenAI’s security scans issued a warning. This was also discussed internally; however, they apparently decided not to report the incident to the authorities.
Sam Altman is now also personally facing court as part of the current indictments. He is also said to have known about the warnings and not acted accordingly. Altman has since apologized to the community of Tumbler Ridge in a public letter.
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One of the deadliest rampages in Canadian history
In the February 2026 attack, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar first killed her mother and her eleven-year-old stepbrother before shooting six other people and injuring dozens more at a school in the small town in British Columbia – most of them children. The rampage is considered one of the deadliest in Canadian history. According to court documents, the new plaintiffs include teachers, a principal, and students, including the family of a girl injured in the attack.
(rie)
