British Columbia has sued OpenAI and Sam Altman over the February 2026 Tumbler Ridge shooting, asking the court to release the attacker’s ChatGPT logs and make the company pay public recovery costs. The province alleges the chatbot reinforced violent thinking and that OpenAI failed to warn police after reviewers identified a credible risk months earlier.
Eight people died, including five students and an education assistant at the town’s only secondary school. The damaged school was later demolished, and students moved into temporary classrooms. The complaint seeks the cost of a replacement school, counseling, emergency personnel and long-term health services, as well as an order requiring ChatGPT to terminate violent conversations.
OpenAI has shared logs with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police but not the public. The company declined to address the lawsuit’s claims directly and said it remains committed to working with authorities and improving safety. Altman previously apologized for not alerting law enforcement, but the factual and legal allegations have not been decided by a court.
The case could test whether voluntary claims about detecting and reporting imminent threats create a legal duty to act. It could also determine how courts balance account privacy against public scrutiny after severe offline harm allegedly linked to chatbot use.