Family of child injured in Canada school shooting sues OpenAI
THE family of a girl critically injured during a mass shooting at a Canadian school is suing OpenAI, claiming it had been aware the suspect had been planning an attack but failed to alert the authorities.
Twelve-year-old Maya Gebala was shot in the neck and head in the attack in Tumbler Ridge on February 10 and remains in hospital.
An initial ChatGPT account linked to the suspect, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, was banned by OpenAI in June 2025 due to the nature of her conversations with the chatbot, but Canadian police were not notified.
OpenAI told the BBC it was committed to making “meaningful changes” to help prevent similar tragedies in the future.
Eight people were killed in the attack, including five young children and the suspect’s mother, in one of the deadliest shootings in Canadian history.
The civil lawsuit, brought by Gebala’s mother, Cia Edmonds, alleges Rootselaar set up an account with ChatGPT before she turned 18 — something users can do with parental consent.
The plaintiffs allege no age verification took place on the site.
The lawsuit claims the suspect saw the chatbot as a “trusted confidante” and described “various scenarios involving gun violence” to it over several days in late spring or early summer 2025.
Twelve OpenAI employees then reportedly flagged the posts as “indicating an imminent risk of serious harm to others” and recommended Canadian law enforcement be informed, the lawsuit alleges.
Instead, it is alleged the request to contact the authorities was “rebuffed” and the only action taken was to ban Rootselaar’s account.
OpenAI has previously said it did not alert police because the account did not meet its threshold of a credible or imminent plan for serious physical harm to others.
The suspect was able to then open a second ChatGPT account, despite being flagged by OpenAI systems in the past, and “continue planning scenarios involving gun violence”.
The lawsuit claims the company “had specific knowledge of the shooter’s long-range planning of a mass casualty event,” but “took no steps to act upon this knowledge”.
The plaintiffs state that as a result of the company’s conduct, Gebala, who was shot at three times after trying to lock a library door to keep out the shooter, has suffered a “catastrophic brain injury”. —BBC
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