YouTube Shooter: What We Know
Police officers stand guard outside YouTube headquarters following the shooting. [ The Atlantic. ]
On Tuesday April 3, 2018, Nasim Aghdam open fired at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California. She snuck into the headquarters with a handgun, wounding three employees before taking her own life.
Suspect in the YouTube shooting-Nasim Aghdam. [ CNN. ]
In Iran, she was known as Green Nasim, a social media star with followings all over the internet. Although in the United States, she portrayed a very different profile: a passionate animal rights activist and vegan, who had become increasingly agitated with living in America and with what she believed to be unfair treatment by YouTube. In one video, she sat in front of a screen with a rabbit, as she tried to explain in Persian the differences between vegetarianism and veganism. In another, she presented her viewers with a papaya, explaining the benefits of the fruit. “Eat it when it turns yellow,” she said.
In addition, her personal website and YouTube videos were filled with complaints about YouTube: “When searching for my website in google, at top of link they add ‘an error occurred’ but there is no error! They add it to keep you from my visiting my site.” In another video, she responded to viewers who believed her to be mentally ill: “I don’t have any special mental or physical disease, but I live on a planet filled with disease, disorders, perversions and injustices.” The idea of the American dream appeared to be ruined for her: “if you enter the system, you will see that it is worse than Iran. Those who want to inform people against the system and big companies get censored.”
Her anger had set her on a 500-mile drive from her home near San Diego to YouTube’s offices on the northern edge of Silicon Valley. 11 hours prior to shooting, the police found her sleeping in her car in Mountain View, California, about 30 miles from San Bruno and also the location of YouTube’s parent company, Google. After checking records on her license, it was discovered that her family had reported her missing several days earlier. Aghdam then told the officers that she had been having issues with her family, and that she had come to Northern California to find a job. She didn’t appear to be a danger to herself or others, so the officers made the decision to let her go. After her release, the Mountain View police spoke to her father and brother to let them know that she was safe. The police noted that there was no mention of her issues with YouTube in that conversation: “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. Throughout our entire interaction with her, she was calm and cooperative.” Although in a second call, her father said YouTube had recently done something that “had caused her to become upset” and that may have been why she was in the area. Still, the police said, her father did not seem concerned and “simply wanted to let us know that may have been a reason for her to move up here.”
Later Tuesday morning, Aghdam went to a nearby shooting range. Then, just after noon, she parked at a business near YouTube’s offices. She walked into one of YouTube’s parking garages, and then into an outdoor courtyard where employees were eating lunch. Emergency officials arrived at the offices two minutes after the police received 911 calls about shots having been fired: "Shooter. Another party said they spotted someone with a gun. Suspect came from the back patio. Address is 901 Cherry Avenue. … Again we have a report of a subject with a gun, they heard seven or eight shots being fired. This would be from the YouTube building,” the dispatch said, according to recorded scanner traffic posted online by Broadcastify.com. YouTube later told reporters that the three buildings at 900, 901 and 1000 Cherry Avenue were put on lockdown. Employee Dianna Arnspiger told ABC that she was on the second floor when she heard gunshots, ran to the window, and saw a woman firing a gun below. Arnspiger said she shouted, "Shooter' and everybody started running," and then she hid in a conference room for an hour with her coworkers. Upon arrival to the scene, the police found Ms. Aghdam dead, along with a 9-millimeter Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol, registered in her name.
YouTube HQ eating area. [ CBS News. ]
Police put on tactical gear outside of the youtube headquarters. [ Getty Images. ]
Over 200 YouTube staff members were evacuated to a nearby parking lot. According to The New York Times, Police talked with two dozen witnesses who said they thought there had been a fire drill and they ran outside when they discovered it was a shooter. YouTube senior software engineer Zach Vorhies told ABC that the fire alarm went off and coworkers were calmly leaving the building as if it were a drill. He picked up his electric skateboard, heading towards the back exit and rode down a hill when he saw a bleeding man on the ground. Twenty-five feet away was another man, who shouted, "Come at me!" He told The New York Times that he didn’t see that man holding a firearm and thought he had "been taunting the shooter.”
By that night, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, had taken down her pages and videos. Ed Barberini, the chief of the San Bruno Police Department, stated: “At this point in the investigation, it is believed that the suspect was upset at the policies and practices of YouTube. This appears to be the motive for this incident.” Three people who were struck by bullets in the courtyard were transported to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. A 32-year-old woman and a 27-year-old woman were treated for wounds and released Tuesday night, while a 36-year-old man was released the following Wednesday. Hospital officials said Wednesday that his condition had since been upgraded from critical to serious. A search warrant was also served Wednesday on the home of the shooter’s grandmother in San Diego County, where residential records showed Aghdam lived. After that search, along with one in Menifee, ATF agents left carrying material in plastic boxes.