YouTube shooter believed she was being subjected to discrimination

A woman who believed she was being suppressed by YouTube and told her family members she "hated" the company opened fire at YouTube's headquarters in California, wounding three people before taking her own life, police said.

Investigators do not believe Nasim Aghdam specifically targeted the three victims when she pulled out a handgun and fired off several rounds in a courtyard at the company's headquarters south of San Francisco on Tuesday, police said.

The Iranian-born woman who blogged about veganism and warned that the planet was "full of injustice and disease" had accused YouTube of suppressing her videos before she opened fire at the company's California headquarters, wounding three and killing herself.

In a series of Persian and English-language online postings, Nasim Najafi Aghdam, 39, railed against YouTube, the video-sharing site owned by Alphabet Inc's Google. 

TRT World's Phil Owira reports.

In some posts, she speaks about herself in heroic terms for surviving in a hostile world. Other pages are adorned with pictures of Aghdam scowling and wearing jewelry of her own design.

"I think I am doing a great job," she wrote in Persian on her Instagram account. "I have never fallen in love and have never got married. I have no physical and psychological diseases. But I live on a planet that is full of injustice and diseases."

In an English-language video posted to her YouTube account before the channel was deleted on Tuesday, Aghdam said, "I am being discriminated. I am being filtered on YouTube. I am not the only one."

Police on Wednesday were focused on the San Diego resident's anger at YouTube as a likely motive.

"Obviously she was upset with some of the practices or policies that the company had employed," San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Wednesday.

TRT World 's Frances Read reports on the incident. 

A statement released later by the San Bruno police department identified her as Nasim Najafi Aghdam, 39, from San Diego, California. It said there was no evidence she knew the victims of the shooting or that anyone was specifically targeted. It said the motive remained under investigation.

Californian media reported that Aghdam's family had warned authorities that she could target YouTube prior to the shooting. The San Jose Mercury News quoted her father, Ismail Aghdam, as saying he had told police that she might go to YouTube's headquarters because she "hated" the company.

Efforts to reach her relatives by phone were unsuccessful.

Her family in Southern California recently reported her missing because she had not been answering her phone for two days, police said.

At one point on Tuesday, Mountain View, California police found her sleeping in her car and called her family to say everything was under control, hours before she walked onto the company grounds and opened fire.

A YouTube product manager, Todd Sherman, described on his Twitter feed hearing people running, first thinking it was an earthquake before he was told that a person had a gun.

"I looked down and saw blood drips on the floor and stairs. Peaked around for threats and then we headed downstairs and out the front," Sherman said.

Another YouTube employee, Vadim Lavrusik, tweeted: "Active shooter at YouTube HQ. Heard shots and saw people running while at my desk. Now barricaded inside a room with coworkers."

Later, Lavrusik said he had escaped to safety.

Google told NBC news in a written statement that it was co-ordinating with local authorities.

"Customers said they heard what could have been gunshots when they were on their way here," Natalie Mangiante, an employee at Big Mouth Burgers located near the YouTube building, said by phone. Mangiante said she did not see or notice anything.

Local television images showed YouTube employees walking out of the building with their hands raised.

In a recording of a 911 call posted online by the Los Angeles Times, a dispatcher can be heard saying, “Shooter. Another party said they spotted someone with a gun. Suspect came from the back patio ... Again we have a report of a subject with a gun. They heard seven or eight shots being fired."

The victims

One of the victims, a 36-year-old man, was listed in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital. A 32-year-old woman was listed in serious condition and a 27-year-old woman in fair condition. Authorities did not release names of the victims.

The three patients taken to San Francisco General Hospital were all awake, Dr Andre Campbell, a trauma surgeon at the hospital, said at a news conference. All three people were victims of gunshot wounds, Campbell said, but none of them had undergone surgery. A fourth person was taken to a local hospital with an ankle injury from fleeing the scene.

The White House said President Donald Trump had been briefed and that his administration was monitoring the ongoing situation.

YouTube has long faced complaints about alleged censorship on its site, and says it attempts to balance its mission of fostering free speech while still providing an appropriate and lawful environment for users.

In some cases involving videos with sensitive content, YouTube has allowed the videos to stay online but cut off the ability for their publishers to share in advertising revenue.

Criticisms from video makers that YouTube is too restrictive about which users can participate in revenue sharing swelled last year as the company imposed new restrictions.

Last month, YouTube announced it would ban content promoting the sale of guns and gun accessories as well as videos that teach how to make guns.

Google communications tweeted, "Re: YouTube situation, we are coordinating with authorities and will provide official information here from Google and YouTube as it becomes available."

YouTube headquarters is located some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the main Google campus in Mountain View.