In a letter to the residents of Tumbler Ridge, Canada, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he is “deeply sorry” that his company failed to alert law enforcement about the suspect in a recent mass shooting. After police identified 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar as a suspected shooter who allegedly killed eight people, the Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI had flagged and banned Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT account in June 2025 for after she described scenarios involving gun violence. The company’s staff debated alerting police but ultimately decided against it, eventually reaching out to Canadian authorities after the shooting.
OpenAI has since said that it is improving safety protocols, for example by putting more flexible criteria in place to determine when accounts get referred to authorities, and by establishing direct points of contact with Canadian law enforcement. ” “I am deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement to the account that was banned in June,” Altman said. ” Canadian officials have said they are considering new regulations on artificial intelligence but have not made any final decisions.
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