SAN BRUNO, Calif. (AP) A woman who believed she was being suppressed by YouTube and told her family members she hated the company opened fire at You-Tubes headquarters in California, wounding three people before taking her own life, police said.
Investigators do not believe Nasim Aghdam specifically targeted the three victims when she pulled out a handgun and fired off several rounds in a courtyard at the companys headquarters south of San Francisco on Tuesday, police said.
But a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press that Aghdam had a longstanding dispute with the company. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said Aghdam used the name Nasime Sabz online.
A website in that name decried You-Tubes policies and said the company was trying to suppress content creators.
Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views! one of the messages on the site said. There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!!!!!
Aghdam hated YouTube and was angry that the company stopped paying her for videos she posted on the platform, her father, Ismail Aghdam, told the Bay Area News Group.
On Monday, he called police to report his daughter missing after she didnt answer the phone for two days and warned officers that she might go to YouTube, he said.
Officers in Mountain View about 30 miles from YouTubes headquarters found her sleeping in her car in a parking lot around 2 a.m. Tuesday but let her go after she refused to answer their questions. Aghdam didnt appear to be a threat to herself or others, police spokeswoman Katie Nelson said.
Nelson would not say whether officers had been warned that Aghdam might have been headed to You-Tube headquarters.
Earlier Tuesday, law enforcement said the shooting was being investigated as a domestic dispute but did not elaborate. It was not immediately clear why police later said the people shot were not specifically targeted.
One of the victims a 36-year-old man was in critical condition, a spokesman for San Francisco General Hospital said. A 32-year-old woman was in serious condition and a 27-year-old woman in fair condition, the spokesman said.
YouTube employee Dianna Arnspiger
said she was on
the buildings second floor when she
heard gunshots, ran
to a window and
saw the shooter on a patio outside.
It was a woman and she was firing her gun. And I just said, Shooter, and everybody started running, Arnspiger said.
She and others hid in a conference room for an hour while another employee repeatedly called 911 for updates.
The worlds biggest online video website is owned by Silicon Valley giant Google, but company officials said its a tight-knit community. The headquarters has more than 1,000 engineers and other employees in several buildings. Originally built in the late 1990s for the clothing retailer Gap, the campus south of San Francisco is known for its sloped green roof of native grasses.
Inside, Google several years ago famously outfitted the office with a 3-lane red slide for workers to zoom from one story to another.
Today it feels like the entire community of YouTube, all of the employees, were victims of this crime, said Chris Dale, a spokesman for You-Tube.
