B.C. is retaining legal counsel to explore its options to sue OpenAI in California for the company’s failure to notify police about the alleged Tumbler Ridge shooter’s flagged online activity.
“When there are serious concerns that opportunities to prevent harm were missed, we have, as a government, the responsibility to act,” B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma said at a Tuesday (July 7) news conference in Vancouver.
The province has retained CFM Lawyers in Vancouver and Stranch, Jennings & Garvey in California.
This would add to several suits already filed by victims’ family members in the state. Sharma said those lawsuits are at “similar early stages” in those proceedings.
OpenAI is headquartered in California.
Sharma said the government owes it to the victims, their families and everyone whose life was changed by the fatal shootings in Tumbler Ridge on Feb. 10.
“We will use the courts to pursue accountability and ensure that British Columbians are not left bearing the costs of corporate wrongdoings.”
Sharma says this work will take time, but the provincial government is “committed to exploring every available option at our disposal.”
She plans to keep the public informed on the potential case as work progresses.
“I think we were all shocked when we heard that there might have been an opportunity to prevent the loss of life that this province suffered,” Sharma said.
“There was a group of people that were aware of messages on OpenAI that were alarming enough to them to say ‘we should report to the police.’ And that never happened.”
OpenAI was aware of online activity
In June 2025, OpenAI shut down a ChatGPT account after detecting a violation of the company’s usage policy.
OpenAI’s automated system had flagged the account, sending it for “human review” to determine whether the company’s usage policies were violated and whether the account warranted referral to law enforcement.
But OpenAI did not alert law enforcement.
This was all revealed in a Feb. 26 letter from OpenAI vice-president of Global Policy Ann M. O’Leary to federal AI Minister Evan Solomon.
“Based on what we could see at that time, the account was banned in June 2025,” O’Leary said in the letter. “We did not identify credible and imminent planning that met our threshold to refer the matter to law enforcement.”
Less than a year later, the northeastern community was rocked by the mass shooting.
OpenAI has since vowed to make reforms.
Nine people, including the suspected shooter, died in the shootings: the first at a home in the community and the second at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School. The victims included five students between the ages of 11 and 13 and a 39-year-old educator. The suspect’s 39-year-old mom and 11-year-old stepbrother were killed at the home.
The suspect died of a self-inflicted injury.
Any money recovered would go toward supporting recovery efforts in the community.
“We will use the courts to pursue accountability and ensure that British Columbians are not left bearing the costs of corporate wrongdoings,” Sharma said.
The provincial and federal governments have pledged a combined $200 million to build new infrastructure for the community, including a new secondary school. Students finished out the school year in a temporary, modular school site.
Construction is expected to begin as early as this summer, starting with the removal of the existing school.
Latest on the investigation, inquiries
Sharma said that because RCMP is leading the investigation, the government is “protecting that investigation by ensuring that they’re the lead on what information comes out or doesn’t come out.”
The RCMP issued an update Tuesday – the first public update in the case since Feb. 13 – that the investigation into the shooting remains active and ongoing.
Staff Sgt. Kris Clark said “significant progress” has been made. He said digital and physical evidence has been “collected, prioritized and processed,” with efforts still underway to analyze the contents on electronic devices seized, as well as to collect all the data from multiple social media and online accounts.
Police are working with specialized units and the Federal Bureau of Investigations to complete the digital forensic analysis and investigative tasks, Clark said.
More than 100 interview statements from students, educators and first responders have been reviewed.
He added the investigators are completing the firearms assessments.
The last public update from police on the investigation was on Feb. 13 when RCMP announced investigators were prioritizing the analysis of the firearms seized at both the home and the school.
A long gun and a rifle that had been modified were seized from the school, and a shotgun was seized from the home.
B.C. RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said investigators determined that the “main firearm believed to be used in the mass shooting at the school has never been seized by the RCMP and its origin is unknown.”
B.C.’s chief coroner Dr. Jatinder Baidwan has said a coroner’s inquiry will happen, but is dependent on the police investigation.