The fight over Tumbler Ridge began long before British Columbia filed its lawsuit: the province alleges that OpenAI detected violent conversations linked to 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar in June 2025, but did not alert police. The company had shut down one of the user’s ChatGPT accounts for a policy violation, according to reporting, yet authorities were not told about the content.¹

On Feb. 10, 2026, Van Rootselaar carried out the attack in the remote B.C. mining community before dying by suicide. The violence closed Tumbler Ridge Secondary School permanently and sent students into temporary modular classrooms. For a town of roughly 2,700 people, the province says the losses overwhelmed a system with no spare school, staff or mental-health capacity; more than 900 counselling sessions were delivered to children and families in the three months afterward.¹

Families of victims had already sued OpenAI. On Monday, B.C. escalated the campaign by bringing its own case in U.S. federal court in California, seeking damages for emergency services, a replacement school and long-term recovery, as well as court-ordered safety changes. The province and school district also want the shooter’s ChatGPT logs released publicly, arguing the records are central to understanding what happened.¹

Attorney General Niki Sharma framed the case as a test of whether AI companies face the same standards as anyone else: “No company should be exempt from accountability simply because the technology is new.”² B.C. contends that OpenAI should have reported an alleged credible threat and that its safeguards did not prevent violent use.

OpenAI declined to address the specific claims and remedies. But a spokesperson called the shooting “an unspeakable tragedy” and said the company remained committed to cooperating with government and law enforcement while advancing its safety work.¹ The RCMP, meanwhile, has said it is reviewing online-account information but has not committed to making the chats public.¹