Aghdam was a vocal critic of YouTube. Her personal website also links to a number of videos about animal rights, bodybuilding, and vegan activism
A woman opened fire at YouTube’s headquarters in California on Tuesday afternoon, shooting three people, injuring all but killing no one, before killing herself.
The San Bruno Police Department identified the attacker as Nasim Najafi Aghdam, a woman in her late 30s who seemingly had a big problem with the tech company. The motivation for the shootings is under investigation, the police said, but her criticisms of YouTube appear to have played a role.
Three patients were admitted to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital: a man, 36, in critical condition; a woman, 32, in serious condition; and a woman, 27, in fair condition, a hospital spokesman said at a news conference.
Here is everything you need to know about the shooting.
Who is the suspected YouTube shooter Nasim Aghdam?
Aghdam, a 39-year-old Southern California resident, worked for her father’s electrical company and at one time operated a business called Peace Thunder, NBC News reported. She was listed on Facebook as an artist as well.
San Bruno police said they found Aghdam, who died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, at 12:53 p.m. in a courtyard area inside the YouTube complex.
What was the motive?
Investigators are still looking for a motive but have ruled out initial reports that she was taking revenge on a former boyfriend. Aghdam was very active on YouTube and was highly critical of its revenue policies.
Aghdam was angry that YouTube was filtering her videos and reducing the money she could make, US media reports. She says her advert was on Iranian TV in 2010. She claims that YouTube filtered her channels to ‘keep them from getting views!’ She also calls YouTube a ‘dictatorship’ and shared a quote from Adolf Hitler about how to spread disinformation, as well as a quote from Albert Einstein about people being complicit toward evil people.
What do we know about Aghdam?
Her personal website links to a number of videos about animal rights, bodybuilding, and vegan activism. It also hosted at least one of the clips from her now-deleted YouTube channel, titled ‘FIRST PERSIAN VEGAN TV COMMERCIAL BY NASIM.’ Aghdam was an animal rights activist who participated in a 2009 protest with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in Oceanside, California, according to the Associated Press.
Her protesting also heavily featured YouTube. A photo posted on her Facebook page last February shows her standing on a street corner with a sign that reads ‘YouTube Dictatorship’ and ‘Hidden policy: Promote stupidity discrimination, suppression of truth,’ NBC News reports.
Aghdam’s father, Ismail Aghdam, said that he told police earlier this week that Nasim was ‘angry’ at YouTube and ‘hated’ the company. Aghdam had reported his daughter missing on Monday, and early Tuesday morning was informed that she had been found sleeping in her car in Mountain View, about an hour from YouTube’s San Bruno headquarters. Ismail said he warned the police that she might be headed toward the headquarters.
How rare are female shooters?
America’s high-profile gun attacks are rarely carried out by female shooters. An FBI study of 160 ‘active shooter’ incidents between 2000 and 2013 found that only 6 incidents, or 3.8%, were perpetrated by a female shooter. All six of these female shooters used handguns, according to the FBI study.