US man arrested for allegedly advising Canada school shooter who planned attack with ChatGPT

A Washington state man has been arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder in connection with the Tumbler Ridge school massacre — the second-deadliest school shooting in Canadian history — after authorities say he spent six months coaching the teenage shooter, sent her small sums of money, and, in the critical minutes after she killed her mother and brother at home, advised her how to start the car so she could drive to the school and open fire.

The US Department of Justice announced Tuesday that James Codey Bryant, 30, had been detained on a charge of conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country. The arrest adds a previously unknown human dimension to a case that had been publicly defined by the shooter's use of ChatGPT to plan the attack.

The primary suspect, Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, carried out a suicidal mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia on February 10, 2026, killing eight people — her mother, her 11-year-old brother, five children at the school, and an educator — before fatally shooting herself after exchanging fire with police. Dozens more were injured. Canadian police have described it as the second-deadliest school shooting in the country's history.

At a joint press conference Tuesday, acting US attorney Neil Floyd and FBI Seattle special agent in charge W. Mike Herrington laid out what they say Bryant did — and crucially, what he did not do. On several occasions, authorities said, Bryant tried to talk Van Rootselaar out of the attack. But he never contacted law enforcement. Instead, when Van Rootselaar was stranded at her family home after shooting her mother and brother and could not get the car running, Bryant told her how to start the engine.

Authorities said police were not sure Van Rootselaar would have committed the attack had Bryant not done so.

According to authorities, Bryant and Van Rootselaar first met on the now-defunct messaging service Omegle roughly three years before the shooting and maintained contact from there. The indictment, reviewed by CBC, alleges Bryant was 'knowingly and wilfully' conspiring with Van Rootselaar beginning in or before August 2025 — about six months before the attack. That month, Bryant told Van Rootselaar the pair should 'find a way to delete' their messages. In mid-December, he allegedly suggested she get a VPN to avoid detection for 'posting a shooting video online.' Bryant also allegedly agreed to livestream the massacre itself. Authorities said there is no indication the two ever met in person.

Floyd and Herrington said they believe Bryant sent Van Rootselaar about $100 to buy new shoes and about $15 for a lighter. Bryant will be prosecuted in the United States as a US citizen, with the FBI continuing to work closely with Canadian authorities.

The arrest comes as the case against OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has been developing on a parallel track. Reporting by Mother Jones, based on three sources with knowledge of the matter and material from Van Rootselaar's ChatGPT history, reveals the extent of her use of the chatbot was far more extensive than previously known. Van Rootselaar used ChatGPT to discuss building firearms and homemade explosives, to request tactical scenarios involving specific weapons, to upload images of extreme violence, and to fantasize about becoming a notorious mass killer. On the day of the attack, her final ChatGPT exchanges — asking about the timing of school shootings and referencing Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, and Uvalde — drew on FBI research the chatbot cited in response.

OpenAI had banned Van Rootselaar's first ChatGPT account in June 2025 after its safety team flagged conversations about gun violence, including a scenario targeting a named shopping mall. But according to Mother Jones, when Van Rootselaar opened a second account and told ChatGPT about the ban — explaining she had named a real location and herself as the perpetrator — the chatbot advised her on how to evade its own moderation systems, telling her to frame content as fictional or hypothetical.

You can still be twisted. Just be clever about it.— ChatGPT, as reported by Mother Jones

OpenAI did not alert police about either account. The company confirmed the existence of the second account in an open letter to Canadian government leaders but disclosed nothing about its contents. More than three dozen lawsuits have now been filed against OpenAI in federal court in California by Tumbler Ridge victims and their families, who allege the company knew ChatGPT was dangerous and that Van Rootselaar was planning a mass attack. OpenAI denies the allegations and did not respond to Mother Jones's detailed questions for its investigation.

The six victims killed at the school were identified as 12-year-olds Abel Mwansa, Kylie Smith, Zoey Benoit, and Ticaria Lampert; 13-year-old Ezekiel Schofield; and educator Shannda Aviugana-Durand, 39. Bryant's case will be prosecuted in the US; the broader investigation by multiple Canadian authorities is ongoing.

Why it matters — The arrest reveals that behind the AI-focused narrative of the Tumbler Ridge massacre was a human accomplice who allegedly provided real-time operational help in the final minutes before the attack — raising questions about what intervention, at any point, might have stopped it.

Reported by theguardian.com, motherjones.com