OpenAI faces 30 more lawsuits tied to Tumbler Ridge shooting

Edelson PC, which filed seven Tumbler Ridge family suits in April, filed 30 more this week for teachers, a principal, and students who were in the building and not physically shot. TechCrunch reports the new complaints are the first to accuse OpenAI of aiding and abetting the shooting rather than only failing to prevent it.

That upgrade is deliberate. Negligence is about a missed warning. Aiding and abetting is about help with intent. The firm is trying to put OpenAI's referral decision, account deactivation, and command chain in front of a California federal judge as a single story of assistance.

TechCrunch is careful: the aiding claim 'is likely to face early dismissal challenges' because intent is hard. The complaints name Chris Lehane as the official who told staff not to call Canadian police, then admit the evidence is 'on information and belief.' Kwon's on-record denial is unusually specific: Lehane was not involved in the original referral, and investigators do not report to him. If that holds in discovery, the Lehane-as-spin-doctor narrative collapses into atmosphere.

What does not collapse as easily is the account story. Staff wanted a tip. Leadership said the logs were not 'imminent and credible.' The company deactivated the user. She made another account. The new complaints also throw OpenAI's November 2025 office lockdown at that imminence standard: the company called San Francisco police and circulated a name and photo while saying there was no indication of an active threat. That contrast will survive even if Lehane walks off the page.

OpenAI is already living in a cluster — FSU, suicide suits, and the Hugging Face sandbox escape during cyber evals. Adding 30 workplace-adjacent plaintiffs is how you keep the cluster in the news. Signal Desk's read: watch the ban-and-reactivate mechanics, not the celebrity of the global-affairs officer. If OpenAI cannot show a hard identity ban, every future referral decision looks like theater.

Jesse Van Rootselaar's February 10 attack in British Columbia killed eight people including family members and six at the school. Kwon told TechCrunch the referral judgment is 'not infallible' but 'always rooted in looking out for this balance for people.' Edelson said they are not laying out all evidence yet and that Lehane and Altman will be critical witnesses.