ChatGPT Helped Tumbler Ridge Shooter Focus on Guns, Tactics, and Terror
Mother Jones
ChatGPT helped the Tumbler Ridge school shooter focus on guns, tactics, and terror, our investigation reveals
OpenAI’s chatbot fed the shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre.
OpenAI’s chatbot fed the school shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre, our investigation reveals.
In June 2025, Jesse Van Rootselaar received an email notification from OpenAI. Van Rootselaar had been using ChatGPT to discuss committing potential acts of violence—including a mass shooting at a shopping mall—and now OpenAI had banned that account. But the troubled teen living in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, was not deterred and soon logged back on with a second account.
In case anybody doubted the corporation that was actively complicit.
Phew. Glad to hear it wasn’t a glitch in parenting, policing, school support, gun safety or negligence. Everyone can rest easy now, and also not consider fixing anything. Let’s sue like Americans and move on.
This article is all about OpenAI’s negligence in the matter…
If you believe they should escape criticism, could you please explain why, rather than using sarcasm?
It’s for the greater good.
(Still sarcasm, if you didn’t catch on.)