‘BLOOD DRIPS ON THE FLOOR’
Shooting prompts hectic scene in Calif.
The initial dramatic reports of the YouTube shooting came in to San Mateo County dispatchers before 1 p.m., according to recorded traffic posted online by Broadcastify.com.
“Shooter. Another party said they spotted someone with a gun. Suspect came from the back patio,” the dispatcher said, according to scanner traffic posted online. “Address is 901 Cherry Avenue. Again we have a report of a subject with a gun, they heard seven or eight shots being fired. This would be from the YouTube building.”
As the reports began to flood dispatchers, a sergeant was heard on the radio taking the call. He told other officers responding or monitoring the situation “to wear their gear.”
Video from the scene showed people holding their hands over their heads as they left the building, which is located in a suburb south of San Francisco. An employee told the Los Angeles Times that three YouTube buildings — 900, 901 and 1000 Cherry Ave. — had been placed on lockdown.
Producers from YouTube tweeted that they believed there was an active shooter on the company’s campus. Some said they heard so many people running that they believed an earthquake had struck. Others described a gruesome scene.
“I looked down and saw blood drips on the floor and stairs,” Todd Sherman, a YouTube producer, wrote on Twitter. He said he looked “around for threats and then we headed downstairs and out the front.”
Michelle Tam, a hostess at the Hashes & Brews restaurant about a block away from the company’s headquarters, said a swarm of police and fire vehicles drove into the area around 12:45 p.m.
“We see lots cops and firefighters,” Tam said. “We can’t see any people. It’s just a lot of trucks along the street at the moment.”
Tam said three YouTube employees came into the restaurant appearing visibly shaken.
“They came in from a back door,” she said. “They sat down at a table. They were in a daze. One guy, there was a little blood on his head.”
One employee had a partial fragment of a bullet in her shoe, Tam said.
At another nearby business, roughly two dozen customers barricaded themselves inside Nueve restaurant around 1 p.m., when authorities told them to “stay far away from YouTube,” bartender Carlos Gutierrez told a reporter over the phone.
“Is this really happening, or is it a false alarm?” Gutierrez wondered aloud as he and others huddled near the scene.