Families of Tumbler Ridge school shooting victims file 7 lawsuits against OpenAI in San Francisco federal court

The families of victims of a February school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, that killed five children and an education assistant filed seven lawsuits Wednesday against OpenAI in federal court in San Francisco, alleging the company's actions related to the shooter's ChatGPT use allowed the attack to happen. The 18-year-old shooter, who also killed her mother and half-brother, had her ChatGPT account flagged and banned in 2025 for misusing the product for “violent activities,” but OpenAI determined the account “did not pose an imminent and credible risk” and the shooter created a second account that OpenAI was unaware of until after the attack, according to The Guardian. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote a letter to the families published on Tumbler RidgeLines saying he was “deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement to the account that was banned in June,” and an OpenAI spokesperson told CNET the company has “strengthened our safeguards, including improving how ChatGPT responds to signs of distress.”