Policies a factor in YouTube shooting
Investigators on Wednesday said they believed YouTube’s policies had motivated a woman who shot three people at its headquarters in San Bruno, Calif., before killing herself. The attacker, identified as Nasim Najafi Aghdam, had been seen at a nearby shooting range before the attack, and a gun registered in her name was found at the scene.
Aghdam had told her family in recent weeks that she “hated” YouTube because it was censoring her videos and paying her less. Aghdam, who was in her late 30s and had lived in Southern California, often discussed Persian culture, veganism and animal cruelty; performed music parodies; and gave exercise tutorials on YouTube and on her personal website.
Aghdam fired “multiple shots” from a Smith & Wesson 9 mm, semi-automatic handgun, which was registered to her, Ed Barberini, chief of the San Bruno Police Department, said on Wednesday.
Aghdam parked her car at a business near YouTube. She entered one of the company’s parking garages and then walked into an outdoor courtyard where employees were eating lunch.
The three shooting victims were taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Two women, a 32-year-old who was admitted in serious condition and a 27-year-old who was admitted in fair condition, were released late Tuesday, a hospital spokesman said Wednesday. The third shooting victim, a 36-year-old man, had improved from critical to serious condition and remained in the hospital.
Police in Mountain View, Calif., about 30 miles south of San Bruno, said they had found Aghdam sleeping in a car near a shopping center around 1:40 a.m. Tuesday. The officers discovered that the vehicle was connected to a person who had been reported missing on March 31 in San Diego County.
The officers called the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office and were told that Aghdam’s family had expressed concern about her well-being because she had never disappeared that way before. Aghdam told Mountain View officers that she was not a danger to herself or to others and that she had traveled to the San Francisco area to look for a job, police said.