Police video shows shooter before attack at YouTube
Mountain View police released body camera footage Friday of an interaction two officers had with Nasim Aghdam in the middle of the night, roughly 11 hours before the Southern California woman shot three people at YouTube’s San Bruno headquarters last week before turning the gun on herself.
Aghdam had been reported missing by her family. The video shows two officers trying to determine why her missing person’s report listed her as “at risk” and whether she was a threat to herself or others. The officers questioned her about why she left home, and why she came to Mountain View in particular. Ultimately, they let her go. The April 3 encounter raised questions in the wake of the shooting, especially after Aghdam’s family members said they had warned authorities that she was angry with YouTube and wondered why police didn’t try to do more to stop the attack. Aghdam believed YouTube had been limiting exposure to her videos on animal abuse and veganism for almost a year.
Mountain View police disputed those claims, and footage released Friday showed more than a half-hour of audio and video from two body cameras activated around 1:38 a.m. on April 3.
An officer was patrolling a parking lot on the 600 block of Showers Drive when he came across Aghdam’s vehicle and ran the license plate. The plate was linked to a missing-person report in San Diego County, which included a note that Aghdam was “at risk.” The officer reported seeing a woman sleeping in the back of the car.
The officer and dispatch then attempted to figure out what the “at risk” designation meant. Audio of a subsequent call from Mountain View police dispatch to the San Diego County Sheriff ’s Department did little to clarify Aghdam’s status.
“This doesn’t say why they’ve put her at risk on here,” a Sheriff ’s Department employee said. “I’m like, that’s a weird entry. Sometimes they do it because there’s no prior (history of going) missing.”
Back in Mountain View, a second officer arrived on scene as backup, and the two woke up Aghdam to question her. She told the officers she had left San Diego County because she and her father were fighting.
“We don’t get along together, so I left them,” Aghdam said.
She told officers she left two days prior and was trying to get a job in the Bay Area. She said she didn’t tell anyone where she went and had left her main cell phone in San Diego. An officer then asked Aghdam if she was taking or should be taking any medications. She answered no.
“You don’t want to hurt yourself, do you?” an officer asked. Aghdam shook her head to say no.
“And you want to hurt anybody else?” the officer asked. Aghdam again shook her head.
Officers asked if she was suicidal, and Aghdam shook her head a final time.
“Why Mountain View?” an officer asked. “I mean, I know it’s a great city and everything, but ... ”
Aghdam said, “I’m like, I wanted to sleep around here. I wanted to get out of those areas, out of San Diego. I have memories I don’t want to have.”
“Start fresh?” another officer said. She nodded yes.
Officers ended the conversation by informing Aghdam that her father would learn she had been found in Mountain View.
The video was not released until Friday because it was part of the San Bruno police investigation into the shooting, Mountain View officials said.
At about 12:45 p.m. the same day, Aghdam opened fire at the YouTube headquarters with a 9mm pistol before loading a second magazine and continuing to shoot, police said. Three people were wounded by gunfire, and another person injured an ankle fleeing. Authorities found Aghdam dead from a selfinflicted gunshot.
In a statement released Friday, Mountain View police defended their actions when encountering Aghdam the morning of April 3.
“In this instance, if an individual is cooperative and does not present any sort of threat, continuing to unnecessarily question
or delay them can lead to an unwarranted detention. As such, our officers are constantly cognizant of this dynamic and, in this context, look to strike the balance between investigative police work and maintaining the civil liberties of those that they contact,” officials said.
In a second conversation with Aghdam’s father about an hour after the encounter, police said, he noted that “his daughter had recently become upset about changes on the YouTube platform that had impacted videos she had created on living a vegan lifestyle.” But police said he never mentioned “any concerns about their daughter’s behavior, any potential violence she may carry out, or any likelihood that she could be a danger to herself or others.”
Police did not record the calls because they were made and received on a cell phone, officials said.
Sophie Haigney is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sophie. haigney@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SophieHaigney