- May 11, 2026
Attorneys representing the family of one of the two men killed in last year’s mass shooting at Florida State University filed a federal lawsuit Sunday against the gunman and the tech giant OpenAI, which they claim abetted the attack.
The family of Tiru Chabba, 45 of Greenville, South Carolina, contends Phoenix Ikner, now 21, planned the April 17, 2025 shooting with the input and assistance of OpenAI’s ChatGPT interface. Robert Morales, the university’s dining coordinator, was also killed in the rampage, and five others were injured.
“(Ikner) literally utilized OpenAI and ChatGPT as his co-conspirator, utilized it as a resource to carry out mass murder and there was nothing in place to prevent that from happening. And so lives were lost,” attorney Bakari Sellers, part the team representing Chabba’s family, told reporters Monday. “That's the inherent danger. There has to be something in place to prevent that from happening so this, what happened at Florida State over a year ago, does not affect another community.”
The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee, includes battery and wrongful death claims against Ikner, as well as negligence claims against OpenAI.
Drew Pusateri, a spokesman for San Francisco-based OpenAI, rejected the accusation that ChatGPT helped Ikner plan the mass shooting.
“In this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity,” Pusateri said in a statement.
Pusateri added that ChatGPT is a general-purpose tool and “we work continuously to strengthen our safeguards to detect harmful intent, limit misuse, and respond appropriately when safety risks arise.”
Pusateri also noted that OpenAI “proactively shared” information with law enforcement after identifying an account believed associated with Ikner.
“We continue to cooperate with authorities,” Pusateri said in the statement.
The lawsuit comes as Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced in April a criminal investigation into OpenAI’s involvement in the mass shooting at FSU.
“Unfortunately, what we’ve seen in our initial review is that ChatGPT offered significant advice to the shooter before he committed such heinous crimes,” Uthmeier told reporters at a news conference in Tampa on April 21.
The overall premise of the Chabba family lawsuit is that ChatGPT is a dangerous product that needs voluntary or regulatory changes.
Court records show Ikner had more than 16,000 interactions with ChatGPT over 18 months, which included questions about the best gun, ammunition, and the optimal time and place on FSU’s campus to kill the most people. In the hours before the shooting, Ikner reportedly asked, “If there was a shooting at FSU, how would the country react?”
The Chabba lawsuit states that instead of flagging the question or shifting the conversation to “a human review,” ChatGPT responded: “Here’s how it might unfold: immediate national attention with breaking news coverage and rapid social media spread; political responses from the president, state leaders, and lawmakers that quickly reignite the gun policy debate; and public reactions such as vigils, memorials, protests, walkouts, and renewed activism. Media coverage would likely focus on the shooter’s background and possible motive, alongside stories about the victims, and broader discussion would include campus mental health and cultural factors such as gun culture, isolation, and policing.”
Chabba’s widow, Vandana Joshi, is represented by Sellers and Amy Willbanks of the Strom law firm, Robert Bell III of Osborne, Francis and Pettis, and Jim Bannister of Bannister, Wyatt and Stalvey.
Sellers said whatever information they can uncover will be turned over to Uthmeier’s office. Bannister added they expect to work with Uthmeier’s office.
“We anticipate that there will be some communications with us that are relevant to both the state’s criminal prosecution, the federal prosecution or civil whatever is going on over there,” Bannister said.
Chabba was on campus as an employee of vendor Aramark Collegiate Hospitality around lunchtime just over a year ago when authorities say Ikner opened fire with a handgun.
Ikner, the son of a Leon County Sheriff’s Deputy, was shot and captured after confronting police officers.
A trial for Ikner, who faces two charges of first-degree murder and seven charges of attempted first-degree murder, is scheduled to begin in October.
Ryan Hobbs, lawyer for Robert Morales’ wife Betty, said in April that he and his law partner Dean LeBoeuf are preparing a lawsuit against ChatGPT and its parent company, alleging Ikner was in “constant communication” with the AI chatbot before the mass shooting.
The university was not included in the lawsuit. Sellers said nothing has been resolved with the university, but “we've had a great working relationship with Florida State University right now.”
