B.C. sues OpenAI, says one call could have prevented Tumbler Ridge mass shooting

VANCOUVER — The British Columbia government has filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence company OpenAI in California over the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., Attorney General Niki Sharma announced Monday.

Sharma said the province is seeking accountability from OpenAI and its decisionmakers and to recover costs associated with the shootings in February that left eight victims dead, including five students at the local secondary school.

She said the company failed to warn police of alarming interactions between the shooter, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, and the company’s chatbot ChatGPT.

Sharma said provincial officials have asked to view the interactions, but OpenAI has refused to disclose them.

B.C.’s claim also alleges the company designed an “unsafe product,” she said.

“We should all be asking them why,” she told a news conference in Vancouver. “We know in similar cases, AI chatbots have been found to have counselled the person to conduct the crime.”

The lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. district court in San Francisco lists OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman as an individual defendant, alongside the firm and other entities associated with it.

It seeks a jury trial, accusing the defendants of negligence, “aiding and abetting a mass shooting,” and liability for having a defective product.

The government and the school district in Tumbler Ridge are seeking “compensation for the not just foreseeable but known harm OpenAI inflicted, the damages that they incurred and are incurring, and injunctive relief to ensure that this tragedy does not happen again.”

“One telephone call to the RCMP could have prevented the tragedy,” the lawsuit asserts.

Sharma said the province is pursuing specific damages, particularly reimbursement for building a new secondary school in the small community in northeastern B.C.

Survivors and witnesses, including pupils and staff at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, are separately suing OpenAI.

Sharma said laws and safety frameworks have not kept pace with AI technology and companies cannot be left to regulate themselves.

The attorney general said she has written to federal officials asking for changes to Canada’s Criminal Code to ensure AI companies can be held accountable for criminal conduct arising from their technologies.

“In any other circumstance, where a person aids, encourages, conspires to commit a criminal offence or is criminally negligent, they can be investigated, prosecuted and judged,” she said.

“There is no AI exemption to those criminal law principles.”

Sharma said the province has filed its claim in California alleging that’s where OpenAI knew “serious things were happening in that chat” between Van Rootselaar and ChatGPT, but failed to report the situation to authorities.

She said filing in California, where many technology companies are headquartered, also offers potential to effect change in addressing safety concerns related to AI.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2026.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press