Warnings before YouTube attack
Family alerted police shooter was ‘angry’ and dangerous
MENIFEE, Riverside County — Anguished relatives of the disgruntled YouTube video maker who drove from Southern California to shoot three people and kill herself at the company’s San Bruno headquarters said Wednesday they warned police the woman could be dangerous — but Bay Area law enforcement officials said they had no idea violence could erupt.
A woman who came to the family home of shooter Nasim Najafi Aghdam on Wednesday said the video maker and animal-rights advocate “was angry” at the company, and that the family had warned police to “be careful.”
It was unclear which police departments the woman — a relative who did not give her name — was referring to. Only Mountain View police acknowledged talking with the family in the hours prior to the attack. Aghdam’s family, however, had reported Aghdam missing a day before the attack to San Diego County sheriff ’s deputies, who on Wednesday declined to comment on whether they knew she posed a danger.
Mountain View police said they encountered Aghdam at around 1:40 a.m. sleeping in her car on the 600 block of Showers Drive. Aghdam told officers she had left home “due to family issues” and was “in the process of looking for a job” while living in her vehicle, police said. She was removed from the state missing person’s
database after the encounter.
“At no point during our roughly 20 minute interaction with her did she mention anything about YouTube, if she was upset with them, or that she planned to harm herself or others,” the department said in a statement. “Throughout our entire interaction with her, she was calm and cooperative.”
The officers concluded there was no reason to detain her, and “a short time later” phoned the family and spoke to Aghdam’s father and brother, the statement said. Again, police said, there was no indication in that talk of a threat to YouTube, or that Aghdam possessed any weapons.
However, “roughly one hour after our phone call to Aghdam’s family, her father called us back” and informed them that YouTube “had recently done something to her videos that had caused her to become upset,” the statement added.
“Aghdam’s father stated that she may have been in the area because of this. He did not seem concerned that she was in the area ... (and) at no point did her father or brother mention anything about potential acts of violence or a possibility of Aghdam lashing out as a result of her issues with her videos.
“They remained calm throughout this second phone call.”
But in Riverside County on Wednesday, the family questioned why police did not do more.
“Police said, ‘We are going to watch her,’ ” said the relative. “But they didn’t watch her.
“The parents warned police: ‘Be careful, (because) maybe she’s angry with YouTube,’ ” the woman said. She added that Aghdam expressed “this anger for one year,” claiming her videos on YouTube were “filtered.”
San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said Aghdam likely did not know her victims but rather picked them at random when she opened fire with a 9mm Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol in a YouTube courtyard just before 1 p.m. Tuesday. Barberini said Aghdam “accessed the campus via a parking garage” after parking nearby. The eruption of gunfire sent YouTube’s 1,000plus workers fleeing in all directions. Officers responding to 911 calls found a chaotic scene on the tech campus, where some employees hid under their desks while others rushed out of the building in a swarm.
YouTube, in a statement released Wednesday, said Aghdam never entered the building due to security measures.
Three people in the courtyard were struck by bullets and transported to San Francisco General Hospital. A 36year-old man was upgraded Wednesday from critical to serious condition, hospital officials said, while a 32-yearold woman and a 27-year-old woman were treated for wounds and released Tuesday night. A fourth person was treated for an injured ankle.
Aghdam fatally shot herself in the courtyard, police said. The attack was motivated by her rage over YouTube’s limitations on videos she posted about animal rights and exercise regimens, police said.
“The suspect was upset with policies and practices of YouTube,” said Barberini, who declared his department had no warnings from any other agency to watch out for Aghdam. “This appears to be the motive for this incident.”
Barberini said that before she stormed YouTube, Aghdam had visited a local shooting range, which he declined to identify. The pistol was legally registered to her, he said.
Investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives interviewed the shooter’s family at their home in a quiet neighborhood of this suburban Riverside County town Wednesday, and in the afternoon they went into the house with
a search warrant.
Aghdam’s father, Ismail Aghdam, emerged from the family home after the search warrant was served to issue a written statement saying: “Our family is in absolute shock and can’t make sense of what has happened yesterday. Although no words can describe our deep pain for this tragedy, our family would like to express their utmost regret, sorrow for what has happened to innocent victims.”
Asked for further comment, Ismail Aghdam, whose family immigrated to the United States from Iran in 1996, said, “To all the U.S. people, all the humans, I’m very apologetic. I’m sorry. I can’t believe it.” He then referred reporters to the written statement, which asked the “media to respect our family’s privacy.”
A search warrant was also served Wednesday on the home of the shooter’s grandmother in unincorporated San Diego County, where residential records showed Aghdam lived. After that search, and the one in Menifee, ATF agents left carrying material in plastic boxes.
YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno — a sprawling, glass-walled complex set in a quiet business park — still had yellow police tape blocking off areas as employees returned to work Wednesday.
In the morning, employees filed into a packed auditorium to ask questions and hear remarks from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, company cofounder Sergey Brin and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. Workers came up to a microphone, one by one, and posed questions about Tuesday’s shooting, according to a YouTube employee who was present and declined to provide his name.
Several employees told The Chronicle that tYouTube and its parent company Google instructed them not to talk to the media.
Questions posed to the executives included: What is the company going to do now? Will YouTube change any policies in response to this tragedy? And what else could the company have done with the shooter’s YouTube content?
Executives didn’t have many concrete answers on what can and will be done, the employee said, but they vowed to address the issues raised.
In its statement Wednesday, YouTube praised the officers who responded to the shooting as “exceptional,” and said there were “numerous acts of heroism” from them and from employees. It said “some employees went back to the building with officers to give them access to our spaces. Others remained to tend to the wounded or to give officers directions and provide details about the shooter that proved critical.”
The company said it is “revisiting this incident in detail, and will be increasing the security we have at all of our offices worldwide ...”
Aghdam’s social media accounts show that she was increasingly frustrated with the company’s treatment of her videos on the website. She posted frequently about animal rights and the benefits of exercise and a vegan diet.
On a website consisting of a photo collage and video posts, Aghdam decried YouTube for taking down some of her videos and limiting traffic to her page.
“There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to !!!!! ” Aghdam wrote. “Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views!”
She also posted on Instagram about the company on March 18, saying YouTube was working to “censor and suppress people who speak the truth and are not good for the financial, political gains of the system and big businesses.”
In 2009, she was quoted and filmed in San Diego County at a protest by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but PETA told The Chronicle it has had no contact with her since that year.
“She appeared at a few demonstrations about nine years ago, but the phone number she gave did not work, and she did not contact us after that,” the organization’s media office said in an email. “We have not been in contact with her.”
One family neighbor, John Rundell, 61, said Aghdam’s father came to him Tuesday night and tearfully spilled out his sorrows.
“He told me he called and reported her missing and he was concerned because she was mad at YouTube,” Rundell said. “He was teary-eyed. He was pretty upset, trying to hold back. I feel bad for the guy. They are really good people.”