On Nov. 26, San Francisco police entered the apartment of Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old software developer, and found him dead from a gunshot wound to the head. Though authorities initially ruled his death a suicide, Balaji’s parents have since publicly insisted he was murdered, citing concerns about how the investigation was handled and Balaji’s decision just one month earlier to go public with his belief that his former employer, OpenAI, was breaking copyright laws. They hired their own investigators, eventually filing a Jan. 31 lawsuit against the police to demand its full report.
On Friday, the San Francisco police and medical examiners released a four-page joint response to the lawsuit, along with a 13-page report from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME), confirming their initial determination that Balaji had died by suicide and pronouncing the investigation into Balaji’s death officially closed.
“The OCME found no evidence or information to establish a cause and manner of death for Mr. Balaji other than a suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head,” reads the medical examiner’s report. “SFPD conducted an independent investigation and based on the information SFPD reviewed, there is insufficient evidence to find Mr. Balaji’s death was the result of a homicide.”
The OCME did not respond to further request for comment.
Balaji was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and showed an early interest in computer programming. He...
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