--- title: "Man Arrested After Telling Claude About Plans to Shoot Up Daycare" description: "A man in Sydney was arrested this week after telling Anthropic's Claude that he wanted to kill children at a daycare near his home." date: "2026-10-22" modified: "2026-10-22" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison.md" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/man-arrested-claude-plans-shoot-daycare" categories: - "Anthropic" - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "chatbots" --- # Man Arrested After Telling Claude About Plans to Shoot Up Daycare ![A photo shows the silhouette of a man in darkness.]() *Shutterstock / Media Whale Stock* A man in Sydney, Australia was arrested this week after telling Anthropic's Claude that he wanted to kill children at a daycare near his home. As the [*Sydney Morning Herald* reported](), 29-year-old David Lan Thackray was taken into custody on Sunday after his disturbing interactions with Anthropic's Claude were flagged by Interpol. He was charged with using a carriage service to harass, menace, or offend, an Australian criminal law. Per the *Herald*, prosecutors cited documents showing that Thackray told Claude that he wanted to "go down to the local Westfield right now and shoot up the local daycare." It's unclear how Interpol gained access to Thackray's chats and whether Anthropic sent them to the international policing organization. In addition to openly discussing a massacre on a local daycare facility, Thackray's conversations reportedly included discussion of Naveed Akram, the alleged terrorist [accused of killing 15 people]() at a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach in December 2025. "What he intends to do is start murdering people in Sydney just like the \[alleged\] terrorist did in Bondi," prosecutors argued in court, per the *Herald*. "We're understanding what's in his mind with his interactions with the chatbot." Thackray's lawyer, meanwhile, reportedly argued that the 29-year-old was simply venting — he was stressed and frustrated due to an ear infection, the lawyer claimed — and that there was "no weight" to his words. He further argued that his client believed his interactions were private. According to the *Herald*, Thackray will undergo a mental health evaluation. Chatbots have emerged as concerning new confidantes for troubled users experiencing harmful delusions, fixations, or disordered thought patterns. Extensive interactions with chatbots have been linked to crimes including a [murder-suicide]() and multiple mass shootings, including the [2025 shooting at Florida State University]() and this past [February's school massacre]() in [Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia](). Stalkers and others with paranoid, obsessive, and otherwise troubling fixations have also [found support in agreeable, always-on AI chatbots](). There's no industry-wide standard dictating when — or if at all — an AI company [should alert]() law enforcement to the contents of a user's interactions with a chatbot. Conversations with chatbots are often extraordinarily intimate and revealing, and there are concerns that reaching into user chats and handing them to local officials could lead to overreach and privacy violations. Yet as chatbots become more deeply ingratiated into our social lives — particularly in the lives of those who may be poised to commit acts of violence and see their chatbot as an available, judgment-free container for their thoughts — they may offer key data that could help officials prevent bloodshed. **More on chatbots and crime:** *[OpenAI Tried to Hide ChatGPT Giving Extremely Specific Advice to a School Shooter on How to Maximize Casualties. The Logs Are Horrific.]()* ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()