Suchir Balaji’s parents have reportedly filed a lawsuit demanding the San Francisco Police Department to release investigation records related to their son’s mysterious death. The former researcher at ChatGPT-maker OpenAI was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26 last year. Since then, the family has increasingly questioned the circumstances of Balaji’s death, despite San Francisco’s medical examiner and police department maintaining that he died by suicide.
Balaji’s parents – Balaji Ramamurthy and Poornima Rao have accused the police of unlawfully withholding public records. The lawsuit, filed in a county court, alleges that the San Francisco Police Department is “illegally shielding public records” pertaining to the circumstances of Balaji’s death, reports American Military News.
What the lawsuit says
In their lawsuit, Balaji’s parents have urged a judge to compel officials to release police reports detailing the discovery of their son’s body on November 26 in his Lower Haight apartment. Their attorneys, Joseph Goethals and Kevin Rooney, challenged the police department’s justification for withholding the documents. They argued that the police appear to be treating the case as if it has already been closed.
“In the two-plus months since their son’s passing, Petitioners and their counsel have been stymied at every turn as they have sought more information about the cause of and circumstances surrounding Suchir’s tragic death,” the lawsuit said. “This petition, they hope, is the beginning of the end of that obstruction.”
Why Suchir’s parents are objecting
The San Francisco Medical Examiner concluded that Balaji’s death was likely a suicide, though official autopsy results remain pending due to ongoing toxicological tests. In their investigation, San Francisco police stated that “no evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation”. While the private medical examination determined that Balaji died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. However, court documents noted that the shooting pattern was described as “atypical and uncommon in suicides.”
