Florida Opens Criminal Inquiry Into ChatGPT Tied to Fatal School Shooting

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Florida Opens Criminal Inquiry Into ChatGPT Tied to Fatal School Shooting

The investigation focuses on messages between the chatbot and the man accused of killing two people at Florida State University last year.

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Two adults died and six other people were injured last April at the shooting near the student union at Florida State.

Credit...

Erich Martin for The New York Times

By

Patricia Mazzei

Reporting from Miami

April 21, 2026

Updated

12:38 p.m. ET

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Florida’s attorney general said on Tuesday that the state had opened a criminal investigation into ChatGPT and its parent company, OpenAI, based on a review of messages between the chatbot and the man accused of

killing two people at Florida State University

last year.

The attorney general,

James Uthmeier

, a Republican, said the messages suggested that ChatGPT “offered significant advice to the shooter before he committed such heinous crimes.” He pointed to several exchanges, including ones in which the suspect asked about a gun’s power at short range and which ammunition might be used for it.

“My prosecutors have looked at this, and they’ve told me if it was a person on the other end of the screen, we would be charging them with murder,” Mr. Uthmeier said at a news conference in Tampa.

Two adults died and six other people, including at least one student, were injured last April at the shooting near the student union at Florida State, a public university with an enrollment of more than 43,000 in Tallahassee. The suspect,

Phoenix Ikner

, who was then a 20-year-old student at the university, faces multiple charges of murder and attempted murder and is in jail awaiting trial.

Prosecutors have gathered as evidence messages that the suspect exchanged with ChatGPT. On the day of the shooting, he asked the chatbot how the country would react to a shooting at Florida State and when the busiest time was at the student union, according to messages obtained by The New York Times through a public records request.

Mr. Uthmeier first

announced

on April 9 that his office would be opening an investigation into OpenAI and ChatGPT. On Tuesday, he said a civil investigation that his office initiated early this month into the company’s potential liability would continue, along with the criminal investigation.

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