OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has apologised to the Canadian town of Tumbler Ridge over the company’s failure to alert police to the troubling ChatGPT activity of an attacker who killed eight people in February.
In a letter to the British Columbia community, Altman said he was “deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement to the account that was banned in June,” conceding that “words can never be enough” to recognise the harm done.
The 18-year-old attacker killed her mother and stepbrother at home on February 10 before opening fire at a local secondary school, killing five children and a teacher and then taking her own life.
OpenAI subsequently said it had identified the suspect’s account through its abuse-detection systems and banned it in June 2025 — eight months before the shooting — but had not reported the user to Canadian police because the activity “did not meet its threshold for referral to law enforcement.”
British Columbia Premier David Eby called the apology “necessary, and yet grossly insufficient.” The family of a girl seriously injured in the attack has filed a negligence lawsuit against the US technology firm.
OpenAI says its automated moderation systems scan content in real time for violations including promotion of violence, self-harm or sexual exploitation, with credible threats flagged for human review. Following the shooting, Canadian officials summoned the company’s safety team and warned of regulatory action if its safeguards were not strengthened. OpenAI says it has since opened a direct contact channel with police.
