Over two hundred employees had to evacuate to a nearby parking lot from the headquarters of YouTube, in California, during Tuesday afternoon. A woman opened fire with a handgun, shot three people, leaving one of them critically injured. She then proceeded to kill herself, according to authorities.
It is still unknown the reason behind the shooting. At the moment, the woman was not publicly identified immediately. Nevertheless, the local and state police, in collaboration with the several federal agencies, are investigating. Authorities did not make any comment when asked if the shooter was a YouTube employee.
The critically injured victim was found near the front door of the building, at 901 Cherry Ave., then authorities found the shooter with a self-inflicted gunshot inside the premises. The two other victims were lucky enough to nearby businesses where they refugeed.
Protests against censorship
Later, the shooter was identified as Nasim Najafi Aghdam, a 39-year-old from Menifee, Riverside County, who was also a productive YouTube user who owned several accounts. She had been complaining about the fact that the platform was heavily censoring her.
According to the San Francisco Gate, she owned a website in which she expressed her veganism through a series of photos and video posts, and in which she also ranted about YouTube restricting the views on her videos. This eventually affected the amount of revenue that her videos were making due to the shortage of the traffic to her YouTube page.
“There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to! Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views!,” the woman wrote.
It is still unknown how she managed to get access to the headquarters. However, she was prepared, as she went in wearing body armor and firing her handgun, while workers who were inside the building had to rush away from her.
No deaths, despite rumors
As some workers and witnesses decided to raise their voice through social media and alert the police and everybody nearby about the situation – or even just to let the world know that they were okay -, some others gave frightening testimonies when the event was finally over.
Jesse Pineda, a witness who was buying lunch across the street, claimed he heard three shots in rapid succession, then saw a woman shot in the leg. After helping her inside the restaurant, he ran back outside and saw another woman on the ground.
“She was dead, I’m sure of it. Those 10 shots were rapid fire — it was no mercy. There were four more shots after that. I wish I had had a gun but I didn’t. I had to be smart and get out of there. I had to be fast,” Pineda declared.
Still, no deaths were accounted for, and the victims, according to Dr. Andre Campbell – a trauma surgeon at the San Francisco General Hospital – said none of the victims had gone under surgery yet and that they were all awake, talking, and well aware of what had happened.
Another employee had to explain that his account was hacked during the shooting, and that eventually released fake news. This created a rage on Twitter. However, the issue was then clarified.
Source: New York Times