Shooter had beef with YouTube policy
UNITED STATES: A woman suspected of shooting three people at YouTube headquarters before killing herself was furious with the company because it had stopped paying her for videos she posted on the platform, her father said yesterday.
Two law enforcement officials identified the suspect as Nasim Aghdam, 39, of Southern California. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the case.
YouTube had ‘‘stopped everything,’’ and ‘‘she was angry,’’ her father Ismail Aghdam said from his San Diego home.
People who post on YouTube can receive money from advertisements that accompany their videos, but the company ‘‘demonetises’’ some channels for reasons including inappropriate material or having fewer than 1000 subscribers.
Ismail Aghdam said he reported his daughter missing on Tuesday after she did not answer her phone for two days. He said he warned police she might be headed to YouTube because she ‘‘hated’’ the company.
Terrified employees huddled inside, calling 911, as officers and federal agents swarmed the company’s suburban campus sandwiched between two interstate freeways in the San Francisco Bay Area city of San Bruno.
YouTube employee Dianna Arnspiger said she was on the building’s second floor when she heard gunshots, ran to a window and saw the shooter on a patio outside.
She said the woman wore glasses and a scarf and was using a ‘‘big huge pistol.’’
‘‘It was a woman and she was firing her gun. And I just said, ‘Shooter,’ and everybody started running,’’ Arnspiger said. She and others hid in a conference room for an hour.
‘‘It was terrifying,’’ she said. A 36-year-old man was in critical condition, a 32-year-old woman was in serious condition and a 27-year-old woman was in fair condition, a spokesman for San Francisco General Hospital said.
Witnesses described terror before officers arrived and discovered a victim near a front door and then found the shooter several minutes later with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said. – AP