Tumbler Ridge massacre: OpenAI detected the attacker's profile before the massacre but failed to alert authorities; family of a surviving victim files lawsuit

The family of 12-year-old Maya Gebala, who will suffer lifelong cognitive and physical disabilities after being shot three times, has sued OpenAI after the company admitted it had noticed the suspect's problematic profile and considered alerting authorities before ultimately deciding against it. In June 2025, OpenAI noticed a disturbing profile among ChatGPT users. It belonged to Jesse Van Rootselaar, a transgender woman living in Tumbler Ridge, Canada, whose posts had been flagged by the company's review system as "promoting violent activity." Several employees then called on the startup's management to notify the Canadian authorities, which they did not do. Eight months later, this woman, who had a passion for weapons, committed one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history by opening fire in a high school, killing eight people and injuring nearly 30. Following its admission, OpenAI now faces the wrath of the family of one of the surviving victims, who have filed a lawsuit against it, reports the Associated Press. >

Maya Gebala, a 12-year-old student at the school targeted by Jesse Van Rootselaar, suffered a brain injury that will leave her with lifelong cognitive and physical disabilities after being shot three times at close range: once in the head, once in the neck, and once in the... play.

Accountability

Her family accuses OpenAI of failing to act when the startup had "precise knowledge that the shooter was using ChatGPT to plan a mass shooting similar to the one at Tumbler Ridge." They accuse the chatbot, which Jesse Van Rootselaar used as a confidant, collaborator, and ally, of deliberately behaving in a way that helped users like her plan events resulting in numerous casualties.

The 18-year-old had notably described scenarios involving gun violence during her exchanges with OpenAI's AI. In addition to her problematic interactions, the woman who took her own life after killing eight people had also created an experiment simulating a mass shooting on Roblox. Besides Maya Gebala's family, OpenAI must also answer to Canadian authorities, who summoned her after her confession in late February. The startup subsequently sent a letter to Evan Solomon, Canada's Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, outlining the measures it has implemented to prevent such an event from recurring. It has relaxed the criteria for reporting accounts to law enforcement and committed to establishing direct contact with Canadian police while strengthening its system for detecting repeat offenders who have violated its rules. While OpenAI did not report Jesse Van Rootselaar to Canadian authorities, it had banned him from ChatGPT, but discovered he was using a second account... after the Tumbler Ridge shooting.

As reports Politico, the company's CEO, Sam Altman, also spoke with Evan Solomon in early March, who asked him to review the previous year's safety alerts in light of the new rules to ensure he hadn't missed other dangerous users who, like Jesse Van Rootselaar, should have been reported to law enforcement.