OpenAI Faces California Lawsuit From BC Over Tumbler Ridge School Attack

British Columbia is filing a lawsuit against OpenAI in California over the company’s failure to notify law enforcement of threats made on its platform before the February 10, 2026 mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary school, Attorney General Niki Sharma said in a statement on September 21, 2026.

The province is working closely with the board of education for SD59 Peace River South as the matter proceeds through the courts, Sharma said. She said the lawsuit raises serious questions about the responsibilities of technology companies when they become aware of credible threats of serious violence, and about the actions that should be taken to protect people and ensure public safety.

The Attack and the Flagged Account

The attack at Tumbler Ridge Secondary school on February 10, 2026 claimed the lives of eight people, including an educator and five children between the ages of 11 and 13, and left 27 others wounded, the province said in a July 7, 2026 release announcing that it had retained counsel to pursue legal action.

Internal reports from OpenAI indicated that the company’s safety teams flagged the perpetrator’s violent prompts on ChatGPT months before the attack, yet its leadership did not notify police or local authorities, the province said. Stranch, Jennings & Garvey, the California-based firm retained by the province, said in its own announcement that OpenAI’s corporate leadership did not notify the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or local authorities after the prompts were flagged.

The province said its legal effort seeks accountability and support for community rebuilding, including the construction of a new Tumbler Ridge school facility.

OpenAI’s Account of Its Response

In a February 26, 2026 letter to Evan Solomon, Canada’s Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, OpenAI vice president of global policy Ann M. O’Leary wrote that the company shut down the perpetrator’s ChatGPT account in June 2025 after its automated system detected a violation of its usage policy and the account was sent to human review. Based on what the company could see at the time the account was banned, it did not identify credible and imminent planning that met its threshold to refer the matter to law enforcement, she wrote.

O’Leary wrote that OpenAI had partnered with mental health, behavioural and law enforcement experts to refine its criteria for when conversations cross into an imminent and credible risk meriting a referral, and that it made the criteria more flexible to account for cases in which a user may not discuss the target, means and timing of planned violence. “With the benefit of our continued learnings, under our enhanced law enforcement referral protocol, we would refer the account banned in June 2025 to law enforcement if it were discovered today,” she wrote.

The letter also disclosed that after the perpetrator’s name was released publicly, OpenAI discovered the perpetrator had used a second ChatGPT account, which the company shared with law enforcement upon discovery. OpenAI committed to establishing direct points of contact with Canadian law enforcement authorities, expanding efforts to direct users in distress to localized support such as local helplines, strengthening its system for detecting repeat policy violators, and periodically assessing the thresholds used by its automated systems to detect potential violent activities.

The letter thanked Solomon for convening a meeting with ministers Miller, Anandasangaree and Fraser, along with Parliamentary Secretary Noormohamed, on how to help prevent similar tragedies.

Retention of Counsel and the Policy Push

The province announced on July 7, 2026 that it had retained CFM Lawyers in Vancouver and Stranch, Jennings & Garvey to explore legal avenues to hold OpenAI and its decision-makers accountable, noting that California-based counsel would allow it to assess potential remedies in the state where OpenAI is headquartered. Stranch, Jennings & Garvey’s announcement named member Lesley Weaver. “British Columbia has never shied away from taking on powerful corporations when their actions cause harm to people and communities,” Sharma said at the time.

Several victims’ families have launched legal proceedings against OpenAI in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The province said in its July announcement that any action it pursued would be separate from the families’ litigation and that the two processes would proceed independently and in parallel.

Sharma said she has written to federal ministers Fraser, Solomon and Miller with policy ideas to amend the Criminal Code of Canada to ensure what she described as a pathway to human accountability for AI’s actions. OpenAI’s February letter identifies Sean Fraser as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and Marc Miller as Minister of Identity and Culture. Sharma also called for strong national safeguards for artificial intelligence technologies and online platforms, saying the case highlights an urgent need for them.

Sharma said that to date OpenAI has not taken meaningful steps to address the concerns raised by survivors, families and the Tumbler Ridge community, and that the company still has an opportunity to demonstrate accountability by strengthening safeguards, improving transparency and taking concrete action to help prevent similar tragedies. She said the filing is consistent with the province’s use of the courts to pursue accountability from tobacco and opioid manufacturers and vaping companies.