Police Release Details, Timeline Of YouTube Shooting

SAN BRUNO, CA — Nasim Aghdam, the woman who shot three strangers then killed herself at YouTube's campus in San Bruno last month, visited the scene of the crime a day earlier to ask about a job, San Bruno police said in a new report this week.

She was at 901 Cherry Ave. for about 10 minutes around 12:40 p.m. Monday, April 2. Police said she spoke with multiple employees, asked for directions to the main office and was directed to the front desk.

Exactly 24 hours later, at 12:43 p.m. April 3, Aghdam walked through a parking garage, entered a courtyard between that garage and the YouTube building and pulled out a handgun when asked to identify herself. That employee fled and called 911.

Right around 12:45 p.m. Aghdam used a semiautomatic Smith & Wesson 9mm to fire into a crowd of YouTube employees eating lunch, expending one magazine, reloading and firing most of the rounds in the second magazine before shooting herself in the chest.At 12:48 p.m. police arrived at the scene, where investigators ultimately found 20 9mm casings as well as one still in the chamber of Aghdam's weapon.

Excluding her injuries, which were the only ones to turn fatal, three people suffered gunshot wounds. A fourth person was injured while fleeing the violence. All of her victims survived.

Aghdam was an avid YouTube user, and in the months leading up to the shooting she had posted numerous pieces of content to various social media platforms expressing anger over business practices she said reduced the number of people watching her videos as well as the revenue those videos were generating.

Investigators say that was likely her motive, and there's no evidence that her actions were motivated by any specific cause or ideology. After the shooting, police served search warrants at homes in San Diego and Menifee, near Riverside. They also searched Aghdam's car, where they found handwritten notes containing YouTube's address as well as the address of Google's campus in Mountain View.

They also determined that Aghdam had been reported missing by her family just a few days earlier, and contacted by Mountain View police around 1:40 a.m. on the morning of the shooting. The officers determined that she was not in need of assistance, removed her from the missing persons database and notified her family - later issuing a statement that at the time they had no probable cause to detain her.

According to San Bruno police, the case remains under open and active investigation. Detectives are reviewing a "vast amount" of evidence they've already received, and are still awaiting more.

Anyone with additional information is asked to call them at (650) 616-7100 or send an email to sbpdtipline@sanbruno.ca.gov.

— By Bay City News Service / Image via San Bruno Police