Woman wounds 3 at Calif. office, then kills herself
AN UNHINGED woman opened fire at YouTube’s headquarters outside San Francisco Tuesday, wounding three people before taking her own life, in what authorities said they were investigating as a domestic dispute.
The shooter, Nasim Aghdam, of San Diego, was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound after heavily-armed cops swarmed the office complex, said San Bruno, Calif., Police Chief Ed Barberini.
One woman who knew Aghdam said she had been mentally unbalanced for years.
“I knew her for a couple of years, and I tried to help her. We were kind of friends,” said Alina Avanesian, 48. “She would bring vegan food for me. She tried so hard. But she definitely had anger problems. She had a lot of hate. Her brain couldn’t process it normally.”
Local officers and FBI agents rushed to the video website’s San Bruno offices after receiving a string of 911 calls about an active shooter around 12:45 p.m.
A 36-year-old man was taken to the San Francisco General Hospital in critical condition, a hospital spokesman said. Two women, 32 and 27 years old, were taken to the same hospital in serious condition. A fourth person suffered an ankle injury in the ensuing tumult.
A motive was not immediately known, but police sources said they were investigating the shooting as a domestic dispute.
YouTube employee Dianna Arnspiger said that Aghdam was armed with a “huge pistol” and wore glasses and a scarf.
“I just said, ‘Shooter,’ and everybody started running,” Arnspiger said. “It was terrifying.”
Avanesian worked on a music video with Aghdam several years ago and said it ended with the suspected shooter suing her in small claims court.
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“Her brain wasn’t processing correctly when she sued me. Even in court, it was her own case, and she contradicted herself. There was something wrong with her,” she said.
Aghdam left a kooky footprint on the internet.
Her website and a bizarre scattering of videos on Youtube railed against the company for apparently blocking her work from seeing the light of day.
“Videos of targeted users are filtered & merely relegated, so that people can hardly see their videos,” she wrote. “There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to !!!!! ”
Google, which owns YouTube, thanked “everyone inside and outside the company for the outpouring of support.” suit was eventually dismissed.