OpenAI CEO Sam Altman apologized to the community of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, for not alerting authorities about a woman who displayed disturbing behavior on ChatGPT and then shot and killed eight people in the town and injured 25 others.
The February shooting was one of the deadliest in recent Canadian history. The killer, Jesse Van Rootselaar, had his ChatGPT account suspended for misuse in June, but OpenAI did not refer the case to authorities at the time.
“I deeply regret that we did not alert authorities about the account that was banned in June,” Altman wrote in an April 23 letter to people in the city and published by local news site Tumbler RidgeLine. “While I know words will never be enough, I believe an apology is necessary to acknowledge the damage and irreversible loss your community has suffered.”
Going forward, Altman said OpenAI would “work with all levels of government to help ensure something like this never happens again.”
According The Wall Street JournalAbout a dozen OpenAI employees had internally debated whether to alert authorities after OpenAI’s automated system had flagged their activity, which included describing various gun violence scenarios. In February, an OpenAI spokeswoman confirmed that the company had flagged Van Rootselaar’s account, but determined that his use of the tool did not meet the necessary criteria to bring the matter to the authorities, meaning that he did not constitute a credible and imminent risk of serious physical harm to others.
Earlier this month, Florida’s attorney general released a criminal investigation on OpenAI, alleging that the chatbot helped plan a mass shooting at Florida State University that killed two people in 2025. According to Washington PostAttorney General James Uthmeier alleged that ChatGPT advised the shooter on “what type of weapon to use, what ammunition went with each weapon, whether or not a weapon would be useful at close range.”
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In the case of Florida, OpenAI told the Mail The shooting was “a tragedy,” but the chatbot was not responsible and simply provided factual answers with information “that can be found anywhere on the Internet.”
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, the parent company of PCMag, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging that it infringed Ziff Davis’ copyrights by training and operating its artificial intelligence systems.
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