B.C. attorney general moves to sue OpenAI over the Tumbler Ridge school shooting

The province of British Columbia has engaged lawyers from both Vancouver and California to take legal action against OpenAI in connection with the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting on February 10 in which eight people were killed.

Niki Sharma, attorney general of B.C., confirmed this during a news conference in Vancouver on July 7th, identifying CFM Lawyers in Vancouver and Stranch, Jennings & Garvey in California as their legal counsel. Locating counsel in OpenAI’s home jurisdiction lets B.C. weigh legal remedies directly in that jurisdiction.

Sharma pointed reporters to Wall Street Journal reporting that OpenAI staff had raised concerns about the shooter’s activity in the year before the attack.

What OpenAI knew and chose not to escalate

The provincial statement says internal OpenAI reports show the company’s safety teams flagged Jesse Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT account for “gun violence activity and planning” in June 2025, roughly eight months before the February 10 attack.

The safety team urged management to notify authorities. OpenAI leadership deactivated the account instead. Van Rootselaar created a second account and continued her ChatGPT conversations.

On April 24, Sam Altman published a letter of apology in Tumbler Ridge’s local newspaper, saying “I am deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement.” OpenAI Vice President of Global Policy Ann O’Leary later wrote to Canadian officials laying out changes to the firm’s referral process and committing to build a direct line to Canadian police.

B.C. will be applying the opioid playbook to OpenAI

Sharma explicitly compared the OpenAI action to B.C.’s 2018 opioid class actions. Those suits against opioid manufacturers and distributors cleared the B.C. Court of Appeal this week after final appeals were dismissed. The province is also set to collect roughly $3.7 billion over 18 years from an earlier tobacco settlement.

“This is no different,” Sharma said. Any provincial claim would seek damages covering B.C.’s own costs, including rebuilding Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, which Premier David Eby announced in May would be demolished and replaced.

Ottawa and Victoria committed $200 million between them in June, $100 million each, toward a new high school and an upgraded health centre in the community.

A second legal front for OpenAI ahead of the IPO

The B.C. move opens a second front alongside a families’ lawsuit already filed on April 29 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Seven families sued OpenAI and Altman personally for negligence and wrongful death, seeking unspecified damages.

As Cryptopolitan earlier reported, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed the first U.S. state-led lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman on June 1, citing Tumbler Ridge alongside a separate 2025 shooting at Florida State University. State attorneys general later issued OpenAI a broad subpoena on June 12 seeking documents on advertising policies, user interactions, and data management, in a coordinated investigation led by New York.

OpenAI is preparing for a public offering that could value the company at up to $1 trillion. Each new front adds regulatory and financial overhang to that timeline.

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