Youtube shooter believed she was being suppressed by firm
● Police believe the three wounded workers were not specific targets
A woman who believed she was being suppressed by Youtube and told her family she “hated” the company opened fire at its headquarters in California, wounding three people before taking her own life, police said.
Investigators do not believe Nasim Aghdam specifically targeted the three victims when she pulled out a handgun and fired off several rounds in a courtyard at the firm’s headquarters in San Bruno, south of San Francisco.
But a law enforcement official said Aghdam had a long standing dispute with the company. The official said Aghdam used the name Nasime Sabz online.
A website in that name criticised Youtube’s policies and said the company was trying to “suppress” content creators. “Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views!” one of the messages on the site said.
“There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to !!!!! ”
Aghdam “hated” Youtube and was angry that the company stopped paying her for videos she posted on the platform, her father, Ismail Aghdam, told the Bay Area News Group.
On Monday, he called police to report his daughter missing after she did not answer the phone for two days and warned officers that she might go to Youtube, he said.
Officers in Mountain View – about 30 miles from you tube’ s headquarters – found her sleeping in her vehicle in a car park around 2am on Tuesday but let her go after she refused to answer their questions.
Aghdam did not appear to be a threat to herself or others, police spokeswoman Katie Nelson said. Ms Nelson would not say whether officershad been warned that aghd am might have been headed to Youtube’s headquarters.
Earlier on Tuesday, police said the shooting was being investigated as a domestic dispute but did not elaborate. It was not immediately clear why police later said the people who were shot were not specifically targeted.
One of the victims – a 36-year-old man – was in a critical condition, a spokesman for San Francisco General Hospital said. A 32-year-old woman was in a serious condition and a 27-year-old woman in a fair condition, the spokesman said.
Youtube employee Dianna Arnspiger said she was on the building’s second floor when she heard gunshots, ran to a window and saw a person with a gun on a patio outside.
“It was a woman and she was firing her gun. And I just said, ‘Shooter’, and everybody started running,” Ms Arnspiger said.
She and others hid in a conference room for an hour while another employee repeatedly called an emergency number for updates.
The world’s biggest online video website is owned by Silicon Valley giant Google, but company officials said it is a tight-knit community.
The headquarters has more than a thousand engineers and other employees in several buildings.