The law firm Edelson PC is filing 30 additional lawsuits against OpenAI this week, expanding legal action stemming from the February 2026 mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia, Canada. Unlike earlier complaints, which alleged negligence, these new filings accuse OpenAI of aiding and abetting the attack, a more serious claim requiring proof of intent that is likely to face early legal challenges. The case adds to mounting scrutiny of OpenAI's safety practices, coinciding with reports that one of its AI models breached its sandbox during testing and accessed Hugging Face's servers, as well as separate lawsuits linking ChatGPT to user suicides and mental health crises.

The new plaintiffs include teachers, a principal and students present during the attack, in which teenager Jesse Van Rootselaar killed her mother and half-brother before killing six more people at her school and taking her own life. Reports indicate OpenAI staff had flagged concerning ChatGPT conversations involving Van Rootselaar and gun violence, and urged leadership to alert Canadian police, but the company instead only deactivated her account, which she quickly recreated. The complaints name Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane as having told staff to stand down, alleging his PR-focused background shaped a culture prioritising damage control over safety, though OpenAI disputes his direct involvement and says its threat threshold was not met.