British Columbia has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging the company failed to prevent a ChatGPT-linked school shooting that killed eight people, including five students.

The lawsuit demands OpenAI pay for rebuilding the town's school and cover the costs of emergency services and trauma recovery.

The incident occurred in February 2026, when an 18-year-old shooter used ChatGPT to plan the violence before killing themselves and others at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.

The school had to be demolished after the shooting, as it became a symbol of the trauma. About 160 students, teachers, and staff were trapped in classrooms and closets for hours, and many were too traumatized to return. Demolition began in August, and the community hopes to have a replacement school built by the end of the year.

British Columbia is asking the court to order OpenAI to share the shooter's chat logs with the public for the first time. So far, OpenAI has only shared the logs with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

The RCMP declined to comment on whether they plan to release the logs to the public, instead pointing to a July statement that confirmed police are reviewing information from online accounts.

"What happened in Tumbler Ridge was an unspeakable tragedy, and our thoughts remain with the victims, their families, and the entire community," said a spokesperson for OpenAI. The company has said it was protecting the shooter's privacy when it decided not to share the violent chat logs with police.

However, British Columbia argues that OpenAI has not made ChatGPT any safer following several mass shootings that established recurring patterns of violent ChatGPT use.

The lawsuit claims OpenAI's rationale for ignoring the threat seemed untrustworthy, and the province suspects the company wanted to avoid drawing a hard line that would require reporting more violent users to the police.

British Columbia also accused OpenAI of hiding the chat logs to protect its potentially $1 trillion IPO. The complaint noted that Open, AI claimed it made an attempt to block violent chats in December 2025, but that change did not stop the shooter's harmful use during that time or in the months after.

Source: arstechnica