YouTube suspect angry at policies, police say
Woman shot three people before killing self, officials say
The woman who authorities say shot three people at YouTube’s headquarters on Tuesday before killing herself was fueled by anger at the company and its policies, according to police and family members.
“It is believed the suspect was upset with the policies and practices of YouTube,” said Ed Barberini, the chief of police in San Bruno, California, where YouTube’s headquarters is located. “This appears to be the motive for this incident.”
Police said Nasim Najafi Aghdam, 39, of San Diego, opened fire on the YouTube campus with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun she had legally purchased. Aghdam fired seemingly indiscriminately at people before turning the gun on herself, police said.
“There’s absolutely no link or relationship that we’ve identified between our suspect and anybody who was at the scene at the time of the incident,” Barberini said at a news briefing Wednesday.
In the hours before the shooting, authorities said Aghdam, who had been reported missing on Monday, encountered local police officers in another city but did not set off any alarms during that interaction. She then headed to a local gun range on Tuesday before traveling to YouTube, Barberini said.
Before she visited the gun range, police in Mountain View, California, said they encountered Aghdam sleeping in her car there early Tuesday morning. Mountain View, home to Google, YouTube’s owner, is about 25 miles south of San Bruno. Aghdam’s relatives have said that they warned police that Aghdam, an active YouTube user, had expressed frustration with the company and claimed it was restricting her content.
The Mountain View police said in a statement Tuesday that Aghdam never mentioned YouTube to the officers and did not discuss harming herself or anyone else.