Thirty new complaints were filed Wednesday in San Francisco federal court against OpenAI and chief executive Sam Altman by people present at the February school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, including students, teachers, and a principal. [1] The suits allege that the company's Intelligence and Investigations team found a "credible threat of gun violence against real people" in June 2025, recommended alerting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and were overruled by global affairs under Chris Lehane. [1] OpenAI denies that account.

The alleged shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, killed five students and a teacher at the school before killing herself, according to authorities. Around two dozen others were injured. Authorities later said she had also killed her mother and 11-year-old half-brother at home. [1] In April, families of seven victims sued OpenAI and Altman for failing to notify law enforcement after ChatGPT conversations were flagged for "gun violence activity and planning." [2] Wednesday's filings add thirty more plaintiffs and a new internal-chain allegation. They do not prove it.

Jay Edelson, lead attorney for the Tumbler Ridge victims and families, said the complaints show "how many people's lives were really destroyed, all based on decisions made by people at OpenAI." [1] One complaint, filed by Deidre Rushlow, a seventh-grade teacher at the school, alleges that Lehane and Altman approve law-enforcement referral decisions, so the call was made "on information and belief, by Lehane himself, or by someone in his chain of command, and ratified by Sam Altman." [1] Lehane is not named as a defendant. [1]

Jason Kwon, OpenAI's chief strategy officer, called that construction false. "It is absolutely false to say Chris Lehane was involved with our original referral decision, or that our investigators report to him in any way," he told NPR. "It's also completely untrue to say that the people at the center of these challenging decisions do not prioritize safety, or that there are 'political' or 'public relations' factors at play." [1] He said Intelligence and Investigations and the legal department report to him. [1]

OpenAI's own April measuring stick is still on the company's site. "When conversations indicate an imminent and credible risk of harm to others, we notify law enforcement." [3] Automated systems flagged Van Rootselaar's ChatGPT account in June 2025. The company deactivated it. She created a second account. OpenAI says it learned of that account only after the shooting. [1] After Wednesday's filings, the company asked the court to dismiss the original seven suits, arguing they belong in British Columbia. [1] In April, OpenAI also said it had a "zero tolerance" policy for using its tools to assist in committing violence. [1] Sam Altman apologized to the Tumbler Ridge community for not alerting law enforcement when the first account was flagged. [1]

Kwon said the investigations and legal teams "work hard to define standards and processes for when to report cases to law enforcement and to apply those standards to really difficult and complex situations." [1] "There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about what happened at Tumbler Ridge, or the victims of this devastating tragedy and their families." [1] Edelson described Lehane, a veteran political strategist, as focused on "what are the political and public relations fallout going to be if this becomes public?" [1] That is the charge. Kwon says the investigators do not report to Lehane. The complaints say, on information and belief, that they do.

Tim Marple, who worked on OpenAI's investigations team in 2024 and now co-directs Maiden Labs, told NPR that incidents like Tumbler Ridge show the risk of letting AI companies self-regulate. "The only people looking at safety systems are the same people who make money from it." [1] NPR counted more than forty lawsuits against OpenAI and other AI companies over suicides, shootings, and other harms before Wednesday's batch, most of them involving ChatGPT. [1] Florida has already sued. None of that converts an allegation about Lehane into a finding. Thirty new plaintiffs exist. Kwon's denial is on the record. The April sentence about notifying police is the company's own stick.

-- ANNA WEBER, Berlin