The chaos and fear that have shaken America gripped one of Silicon Valley’s iconic companies
SAN BRUNO — YouTube, where millions turn to watch news of the world unfold, became the subject of its own trending video feed Tuesday after its headquarters turned into a shooting ground for a woman who critically wounded an employee and injured two others in a courtyard before killing herself.
The shooter — a YouTuber who had recently ranted at the company for filtering her videos — called out “come at me or come and get me!” said senior software engineer Zach Vorhies, one of hundreds of employees who fled the building after witnesses described the sound of more than a dozen gunshots echoing through the building. Vorhies froze for a moment, he said, as he passed a man lying on his back with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to his torso.
And for the next hour, the chaos and terror of two words that have shaken America gripped one of Silicon Valley’s iconic companies: “Active shooter at YouTube HQ,” one employee tweeted. Immediately, panic spread throughout the tech campus and across social media, as YouTube employees barricaded themselves in offices and conferences rooms while others fled in a stampede that one employee described as sounding like the rumble of an earthquake.
“Heard shots and saw people running while at my desk,” employee Vadim Lavrusik tweeted at 12:57 p.m. “Now barricaded inside a room with coworkers.”
“I looked down and saw blood drips on the floor and stairs,” project manager Todd Sherman tweeted at 1:10 p.m. “Peeked around for threats and then we headed downstairs and out the front.”
On Tuesday night, a law enforcement source identified the shooter as Nasim Aghdam of the Southern California town of Menifee.
A law-enforcement source told the Bay Area News Group late Tuesday afternoon that the shooting may have been fueled by a domestic dispute and that the suspect was targeting a boyfriend, not others who were injured. But in an interview Tuesday night, her father Ismail Aghdam told this news organization his daughter was a vegan activist who was angry with YouTube because the company stopped paying for her content.
The source said the woman had no criminal history in San Mateo County. It’s not yet clear how she was able to pass through stringent lobby security.
In front of a phalanx of news media, San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini described how three officers were met with a multitude of fleeing employees at the Cherry Avenue campus when they arrived within two minutes of the 12:46 p.m. emergency call.
“We have one subject who is deceased inside the building with a self-inflicted wound at this time, (who) we believe to be the shooter,” Barberini said within hours of the shooting.
The woman used a handgun, the chief said, but he would not confirm a motive.
He praised YouTube employees, some of whom stopped to care for a shooting victim at the front of the building while officers raced past to find to search for the shooter just before 1 p.m.
“It was very chaotic, as you can imagine,” Barberini said.
Just weeks after a gunman killed 17 people in a high school in Parkland, Florida, the shooting became a tragic replay of America’s struggle with gun violence. And it comes just three weeks after an Army veteran held hostage and killed three employees at the Napa County veterans home in Yountville where he had been treated.
“There are no words to describe how horrible it was to have an active shooter @YouTube today,” CEO Susan Wojcicki tweeted, echoing a tweet from YouTube’s parent company CEO Sundar Pichai of Google. “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.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted his concern, saying “we send our sympathy and support to the team at YouTube and Google, especially the victims and their families.”
And President Trump offered his condolences via Twitter: “Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved.”
Dianna Arnspiger said she was on the second floor Tuesday when she heard gunshots, ran to the window and saw a woman firing a gun on a patio below.
Arnspiger says she called out, “‘Shooter,’ and everybody started running.” She and others hid in a conference room for an hour while someone called 911 repeatedly for updates. “It was terrifying,” she said.
One of the female victims, shot in the left calf in the courtyard, somehow made her way to the Carl’s Jr restaurant across the street, where customers and employees jumped into action.
One customer who only gave his name as “Jesse” said he helped drag the woman from outside into a booth. “I knew the shooter was close,” he said. “I could feel the force of the gunshots” reverberate through his own body.
Travis Ganley, 24, had just sat down for lunch when he opened the door for the wounded woman, who was wearing black leggings and appeared to be in her 20s or 30s. The woman “said they were all having lunch outside (at YouTube) and a lady came in and started shooting them,” Ganley said.
Carl’s Jr. supervisor Michael Finney, 21, said he first tried to help tie a twisted sweatshirt around the woman’s leg to stem the bleeding. When that didn’t work, he quickly rummaged through the office desks and cupboards.
“I tried rubber bands at first, and, of course, it didn’t work,” he said of the bands normally used for rolling cash. He went back and found a bungee cord in an upper cabinet and secured it above her wound before paramedics arrived.
“Everyone was figuring out what to do,” Finney said. “I was trying to stay calm and see what I could do. Everybody is shocked.”
Erick Zaragoza, a 22-year-old student from nearby Skyline College, had pulled into a restaurant parking lot down the block from YouTube headquarters when he heard the shooting.
“It had to be at least 15 gunshots,” he said. “I’m seeing people running and thinking, what’s going on?”
He encountered an out-of-breath chef in a white jacket running from the YouTube cafeteria. “He said he was fine but saw a lady shooting,” said Zaragoza, who also watched the woman with the leg wound being loaded into the ambulance.
“It was pretty crazy, honestly,” Zaragoza said.
The shooting comes as YouTube plans this month to modify its policy on gun sales. The popular video site announced it would ban content that promotes the sale of guns and accessories like bump stocks, which modify guns to fire rapidly.
