YouTube shooter’s ‘hatred’ of video site
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 several rounds in a courtyard at the company’s headquarters south of San Francisco on Tuesday, police said.
Officers and federal agents responding to multiple 911 calls swarmed the company’s campus in the Bay Area city of San Bruno.
A law enforcement official said Aghdam had a longstanding dispute with the company and 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.
Aghdam “hated” YouTube and was angry that the company stopped paying her for videos she posted on the platform, her father, Ismail Aghdam said.
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 YouTube’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 officers had been warned Aghdam might have been headed to YouTube’s campus.
One of the victims – a 36-yearold 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.
YouTube employee Dianna Arnspiger said she was on the building’s second floor when she heard gunshots 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.
The world’s biggest online video website, YouTube is owned by Silicon Valley giant Google.
“Today it feels like the entire community of YouTube, all of the employees, were victims of this crime,” said Chris Dale, a spokesman for YouTube.