YouTube headquarters shooting
2018 shooting in San Bruno, California From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
On April 3, 2018, at approximately 12:46 p.m. PDT, a shooting occurred at the headquarters of the American video-sharing website YouTube in San Bruno, California. The shooter was identified as 38-year-old Nasim Najafi Aghdam, an Iranian-American woman, who entered through an exterior parking garage, approached an outdoor patio, and opened fire with a Smith & Wesson 9 mm semi-automatic pistol. Aghdam wounded three people, one of them critically, before killing herself with her own firearm.[6][7][8]
| YouTube headquarters shooting | |
|---|---|
 YouTube's headquarters in San Bruno, California pictured in April 2017 | |
  San Bruno San Bruno (San Francisco)  San Bruno San Bruno (San Francisco Bay Area)  San Bruno San Bruno (California)  San Bruno San Bruno (the United States) | |
| Location | YouTube headquarters 901 Cherry Avenue San Bruno, California, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 37.62816°N 122.42630°W |
| Date | April 3, 2018 (PDT, UTC−7) |
Attack type | Attempted murder, mass shooting |
| Weapons | Smith & Wesson SD9VE semi-automatic pistol[1] |
| Deaths | 1 (the perpetrator)[2] |
| Injured | 4 (3 by gunfire)[3] |
| Perpetrator | Nasim Najafi Aghdam[4] |
| Motive | Retaliation for YouTube channel demonetization[5] |
At 12:46 p.m., San Bruno police received reports of a shooter at the YouTube headquarters.[9] Aghdam's weapon had a capacity of 10 rounds and she emptied one magazine before reloading.[10] Helicopter footage later showed a large hole and broken glass in the building's lobby doors.[11] A coroner's report found that Aghdam died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the heart, finding no evidence of drugs or alcohol in her system.[12]
The perpetrator was identified by police as Nasim Najafi Aghdam (Persian: نسيم نجفى اقدم; 5 April 1979 – 3 April 2018), a vegan activist and fitness personality of Iranian-Azerbaijani heritage.[13][14] She was born in Urmia, Iran; her parents immigrated to Iran from the Republic of Azerbaijan.[14] She immigrated to the United States with her family in 1996.[15][16][17] She was a registered member of the Baháʼí Faith[18] and described how veganism aligned with her religion.[19] She was critical of Muslims and Baháʼís who ate animals.[20] She lived with her grandmother in Riverside County, California,[16][17] and posted content on Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and YouTube in Persian, Azerbaijani, English and Turkish.[16] Her content went viral on Iranian social media and drew widespread attention.[21] She had protested with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) against the use of pigs in United States Marine Corps training procedures for victims of trauma.[22]
Aghdam purchased and registered a 9 mm Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistol from The Gun Range San Diego, a gun dealer, on January 16, 2018.[23] On March 31, 2018, Aghdam's family reported to the police that she was missing.[5] According to her father, she hated YouTube, and the family was worried she might be traveling to the company's offices.[24][25]
The morning before the shooting, police officers found Aghdam sleeping in her car in a Walmart parking lot in Mountain View, 23 miles (37 km) south of YouTube's headquarters.[26][27] The officers did not identify her as a threat, and it is unclear whether they were aware of the concerns of Aghdam's father.[28] Aghdam visited a shooting range the day before the shooting.[27]
Police believe Aghdam was motivated by perceived discrimination by YouTube towards her channels.[29][30] She complained about the company on her website,[31][32] writing that "Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views!" and that the company had demonetized most of her videos.[33]
Her father Ismail, of Riverside County, said that his daughter was a "vegan activist and animal lover" who told him that YouTube had been censoring her videos and stopped paying her for her content. "She was angry," he said.[34] According to the San Jose Mercury-News, her YouTube channel included strange workout video clips, graphic anti-animal abuse videos and vegan cooking tutorials.[34]
San Francisco General Hospital and Stanford University Medical Center treated four victims: a 36-year-old man in critical condition, a 32-year-old woman in fair condition, a 27-year-old woman in stable condition, and one woman who injured her ankle while fleeing.[35][36][3][37][38][39]
U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted, "Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved. Thank you to our phenomenal law enforcement officers and first responders that are currently on the scene."[40] Other politicians who extended condolences included Vice President Mike Pence, Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, and California U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein.[41][42][43]
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki wrote on Twitter: "There are no words to describe how horrible it was to have an active shooter @YouTube today. Our deepest gratitude to law enforcement & first responders for their rapid response. Our hearts go out to all those injured & impacted today. We will come together to heal as a family."[44] Google CEO Sundar Pichai echoed his sentiments on Twitter, and sent an email to his employees describing the shooting as an "unimaginable tragedy" and a "horrific act of violence."[45]
Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos, the CEOs of Apple and Amazon respectively, offered their condolences.[46][47] Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, and Box CEO Aaron Levie called for stricter gun control legislation.[48] On Twitter, some right-wing accounts used the hashtag #CensorshipKills to blame the shooting on YouTube and portray Aghdam as a free speech martyr.[49]
The Baháʼí National Center condemned the shooting and extended their condolences.[50][51]
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