YouTube headquarters shooting | |
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Location | YouTube headquarters 901 Cherry Avenue San Bruno, California, U.S. |
Coordinates | 37°37′41″N122°25′35″W / 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] |
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]
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, 25 miles (40 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, and a 27-year-old woman in stable condition. One woman 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."[ citation needed ] 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. [40] [41] [42]
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." [43] Google CEO Sundar Pichai echoed her sentiments on Twitter, and sent an email to his employees describing the shooting as an "unimaginable tragedy" and a "horrific act of violence." [44]
Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos, the CEOs of Apple and Amazon respectively, offered their condolences. [45] [46] Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, and Box CEO Aaron Levie called for stricter gun control legislation. [47] On Twitter, some right-wing accounts used the hashtag #CensorshipKills to blame the shooting on YouTube and portray Aghdam as a free speech martyr. [48]
The Baháʼí National Center condemned the shooting and extended their condolences. [49] [50]
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YouTube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views.
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