A deranged, gun-wielding woman who posted a bizarre online manifesto blasting YouTube opened fire Tuesday at the company’s Northern California headquarters, wounding three people before killing herself.
Nasim Aghdam, 38, was armed with a handgun when she strolled onto the YouTube campus in San Bruno at about 12:45 p.m. and began shooting, police said.
The victims were two women, ages 32 and 27, and a 36-year-old man. They were recovering at San Francisco General Hospital early Wednesday. The man was listed in critical condition.
Cops didn’t immediately go into detail about what sparked Aghdam’s rampage — though a manifesto posted on her website showed her to be paranoid and angry.
“Be aware! Dictatorship exists in all countries but with different tactics!” she wrote.
“They only care for personal and short-term profits and do anything to reach their goals even by fooling simple-minded people, hiding the truth, manipulating science and everything.”
Aghdam accused YouTube of censorship in seeking to silence her.
She also complained about not making enough money off YouTube ads by her content, claiming she got only 10 cents for pages that drew 300,000 views.
“There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site,” she wrote. “Your channel will grow if they want to!”
The lunchtime assault sent terrified YouTube employees running for their lives.
Dianna Arnspiger was on the second floor when she heard shots and turned to the patio to see the attacker with a “big huge pistol.”
“It was a woman and she was firing her gun. And I just said, ‘Shooter,’ and everybody starting running,” Arnspiger said. “It was terrifying.”
Zach Vorhies, a 37-year-old software engineer, heard a fire alarm, grabbed his skateboard and was hustling out when he spotted the shooter.
She was in the courtyard and screaming, “’Come at me,’ or ‘Come get me,’” Vorhies said.
By the time cops arrived and stormed YouTube headquarters, they found the shooter dead of a self-inflicted wound, San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said.
Aghdam’s violent end belied the “humane living” that she boasted about on her website.
She proudly called herself a “female vegan bodybuilder, also animal rights activist.”
In one oddball music video that she had apparently produced and posted online, she edited herself dancing alongside herself in a black and white outfit and a cow-head mask.
The LA Times interviewed Aghdam in 2009 at a Camp Pendleton protest where Marines were using pigs in training for treatment of battlefield wounds.
“For me animal rights equals human rights,” said Aghdam, who identified herself as an office manager at a construction company in San Diego.
“Just because they can’t talk doesn’t mean we should take advantage of them.”
The video in which Aghdam complains about her content being “discriminated and filtered on YouTube” was posted in January 2017.
The clips have since been scrubbed and her account deleted.
An Instagram page purportedly belonging to Aghdam was taken down Tuesday night.
Additional reporting by David K. Li and Wire Services