Man arrested after telling Claude he would shoot up a daycare; his lawyer calls it a private rant
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A man in his 20s in Sydney was arrested after telling the AI chatbot Claude that he planned a mass shooting at a childcare centre near his home.
Per The Independent on Oct 20, the 29-year-old allegedly said he would "go down to the local Westfield right now and shoot up the local daycare." The conversation was flagged to Interpol, and he was arrested on Oct 18. He was charged with using a carriage service to menace and is in custody for a mental health assessment. His Claude account was suspended.
His lawyer said there was "no weight behind what he was saying," describing it as a stress-fueled tirade after he asked the chatbot for help with an ear infection. He argued the exchange took place privately at home and that his client never asked the chatbot to threaten anyone. Prosecutors said he intended to "start murdering people in Sydney."
The story climbed to the top of r/ClaudeAI on Oct 22. The Independent noted that Claude is trained to refuse requests to plan or incite violence and that Anthropic shares user data with law enforcement. In September, Anthropic published a report on attempts to misuse Claude that it detected and disrupted between December 2025 and August 2026.
