OpenAI says it will strengthen its safety measures after the company failed to alert police about the Tumbler Ridge shooting suspect's ChatGPT account despite it being flagged internally months before the attack.
In an open letter to Canadian officials, the company said the suspect was able to create a second account after the first was banned, slipping past its internal detection systems.
It said it has also since changed how it reports accounts to police, and that the suspect's activity would be referred to law enforcement if it were flagged today.
An account linked to the suspect, 18‑year‑old Jesse Van Rootselaar, was banned by OpenAI in June 2025 — seven months before the shooting.
Eight people were killed in the 10 February attack, which took place at a residence and the local secondary school in Tumbler Ridge, a small town in British Columbia, Canada.
