N.D. CAL.Litigation
British Columbia and school board sue OpenAI over failure to report school-shooting threats
The Province of British Columbia and School District 59 sued OpenAI and Chief Executive Sam Altman in California federal court on Monday, alleging the company failed to alert police to ChatGPT conversations planning a February 2026 school shooting. The complaint asserts OpenAI identified the user as an imminent threat in June 2025 but deactivated the account without notifying Canadian authorities. British Columbia seeks reimbursement for reconstructing Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, psychiatric services, punitive damages, and injunctive safety mandates.
Filing (BC Gov News) → · CityNews Kitchener, Reuters, BBC News
Key points
- The complaint filed in San Francisco federal court alleges negligence, product liability, failure to warn, and aiding and abetting.CityNews KitchenerReuters
- OpenAI's safety systems flagged the shooter's discussions of firearms in June 2025, but leadership declined referral to the RCMP.CityNews KitchenerReuters
- The shooter opened a secondary ChatGPT account after deactivation without user-level blocking or enhanced verification safeguards.CityNews KitchenerReuters
- Plaintiffs seek costs to demolish and rebuild Tumbler Ridge Secondary School following the February 10 attack that killed eight victims.CityNews KitchenerBBC News
- The suit requests court orders requiring automated systems to refuse and de-escalate violence prompts and report imminent threats to police.CityNews KitchenerBC Gov News
Sources4 articles across 4 outlets · 12 in the cluster
BBC News
BC Gov News
CityNews Kitchener
Reuters
Filed under
LitigationOpenAIU.S.CanadaN.D. Cal.LitigationTechnologyConsumer protectionFor practitionersFor governance