OpenAI draws 30 more Tumbler Ridge suits as plaintiffs point at Chris Lehane
The law firm Edelson PC filed 30 fresh complaints against OpenAI and Sam Altman in a San Francisco federal court. The plaintiffs are teachers, a principal and students who were present during the 10 February 2026 attack on Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia, in which eight people were killed. Following seven suits in April, the new filings escalate the allegation from negligence to aiding and abetting and claim that Chris Lehane's global affairs team overruled a recommendation to alert police. OpenAI rejects that account.
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Edelson PC files 30 fresh complaints against OpenAI
The law firm Edelson PC filed 30 fresh complaints against OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, in a San Francisco federal court. The plaintiffs are students, teachers and a principal who were present, without physical injury, during the 10 February 2026 attack on Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia, in which eight people were killed; one complaint was brought for Deidre Rushlow, a seventh-grade teacher at the school. In April, the families of seven victims injured or killed in the attack sued OpenAI and Altman for failing to notify law enforcement of the alleged shooter's violent ChatGPT conversations and for aiding and abetting the attack. The new filings repeat those claims, escalate from negligence to aiding and abetting a mass shooting, and name the company's chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane.[1], [2]
The recommendation to alert police was overruled by Lehane's team, plaintiffs say
The plaintiffs allege that when OpenAI's Intelligence and Investigations team reviewed the flagged conversations, it found a credible threat of gun violence against real people and recommended that the company alert the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In the new complaints, that recommendation was overruled inside the global affairs team responsible for public relations, public policy and political relationships, headed by the political strategist Chris Lehane. The complaints say Lehane and Altman approve decisions on referring safety concerns to law enforcement, and the plaintiffs argue that instead of the trained threat-assessment professionals who urged contact with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the call was made by Lehane or by someone in his chain of command and ratified by Altman. The plaintiffs set that handling against a November 2025 episode in which OpenAI locked down offices and notified police over an alleged activist threat. Jay Edelson, lead attorney for the Tumbler Ridge victims, said the complaints show how many lives were destroyed following decisions taken at OpenAI.[1], [2]
OpenAI denies Lehane had a part in the referral decision
Jason Kwon, OpenAI's chief strategy officer, said it is absolutely false to say Lehane was involved in the original referral decision, and that the company's investigators do not report to him in any way. Kwon said it is also untrue that the people at the centre of these difficult decisions do not prioritise safety, or that political and public-relations factors were at play; he added that the Intelligence and Investigations team and the legal department report to him. Kwon said the company's judgment is always rooted in looking out for that balance for people, while making no claim to infallibility. Eight months before the attack, in June 2025, OpenAI's automated systems flagged the alleged shooter's ChatGPT account, citing gun violence activity and planning; the company deactivated the account, the user opened a second one, and OpenAI says it learned of that account only after the attack. According to the authorities, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar killed five students and a teacher before taking her own life; about 24 others were injured; the authorities later learned she had also killed her mother and 11-year-old half-brother at home before coming to the school.[1], [2]
