YouTube shooter Nasim Aghdam's father says she 'hated' YouTube, and he warned the police

(Image credit: Courtesy of San Bruno Police Department via AP)

last updated 4 April 2018

Police in San Bruno, California, confirmed Tuesday night that the presumptive assailant who shot three people and then killed herself at YouTube headquarters was Nasim Aghdam, 38 or 39, from San Diego. The police said they don't have a motive yet, but Aghdam's father, Ismail Aghdam, provided at least some context Tuesday night. Nasim Aghdam felt that YouTube had cheated her and "stopped everything, and now she has no income," he told NBC News. "She was angry," he told the Bay Area News Group, adding that the family did not know she had a handgun, but "maybe she bought one" recently.

Aghdam disappeared Saturday and wasn't answering her cellphone, her family said. On Monday, Ismail Aghdam called the police to report her missing and suggested she might be headed to YouTube's headquarters because she "hated" the company. Police in Mountain View, about 30 miles south of San Bruno, discovered Nasim Aghdam asleep in her car at about 2 a.m. on Tuesday, and when she confirmed her identity and answered some questions, they let her go. They called her family to let them know she'd been found and everything was "under control," Ismail Aghdam said. The Mountain View police said that "at no point in our contact with the woman did she indicate she was a threat to herself or others."

Aghdam, who used the online name Nasime Sabz, said on her website that she had four YouTube channels. YouTube removed all her videos on Tuesday, and Facebook took down her account and Instagram feed, but Bay Area News Group was able to view her posts first, and over the past couple of months she had become increasingly critical of YouTube, accusing the video site of censoring her content by restricting the number of people who would see her videos. You can see a sampling at the San Jose Mercury News. All three victims are in the hospital, in critical to fair condition.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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