New Lawsuits Say OpenAI Execs Overrode Safety Team in Shooting

New lawsuits filed against OpenAI on Wednesday accuse the ChatGPT maker's executives of putting the company's public image ahead of public safety before a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.

Thirty complaints were brought against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman in a San Francisco federal court by people present at the February 2026 shooting, including students, teachers and a principal. The suits follow an earlier round filed in April by families of seven other victims, who accused OpenAI of failing to alert law enforcement to the alleged shooter's violent conversations with ChatGPT.

The new complaints allege that officials in OpenAI's public relations division, including chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane, overrode a recommendation from the company's safety team to refer the shooter's account to authorities.

"What these complaints show is the larger impact and how many people's lives were really destroyed all based on decisions made by people at OpenAI," said Jay Edelson, the lead attorney for the victims and families.

OpenAI disputed the allegations. Chief strategy officer Jason Kwon called it "absolutely false" that Lehane was involved in the original referral decision, saying the investigations and legal teams report directly to him, not Lehane.

The alleged shooter, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, killed five students and a teacher before killing herself, according to authorities. Around two dozen others were injured. She had also killed her mother and 11-year-old half-brother at their home before arriving at the school.

According to an April lawsuit, OpenAI's automated systems flagged Van Rootselaar's account for "gun violence activity and planning" eight months before the shooting, in June 2025. The company deactivated the account, but Van Rootselaar created a second one and continued chatting with ChatGPT, which OpenAI says it was unaware of until after the shooting.

The new complaints allege that OpenAI's threat-assessment team determined the flagged conversations "posed a credible threat of gun violence against real people" and recommended alerting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but that the decision was ultimately made by Lehane or someone in his chain of command and "ratified" by Altman.

Kwon said OpenAI's safety professionals "care so deeply about keeping people safe" and work with mental health and law enforcement experts to shape policy. Altman previously apologized to the Tumbler Ridge community for not alerting police when the account was first flagged.