Once again we find out that cops were warned about the YouTube shooter before she actually committed the shooting:
NY POST – The YouTube shooter’s brother says he warned cops “she might do something” to the company — a day before she opened fire at its headquarters and then killed herself Wednesday.
Nasim Aghdam’s brother says he passed on his concerns after the family reported her missing over the weekend, and police then told them her car had been found in Mountain View, Calif.
“I Googled ‘Mountain View’ and it was close to YouTube headquarters, and she had a problem with YouTube,” her brother, who wasn’t named, told local ABC affiliate KGTV. “So I called that cop again and told him there’s a reason she went all the way from San Diego to there, so she might do something.”
One day before isn’t a lot of time in order to find someone, you might be thinking. But cops did actually find her the morning of the shooting!
Police have said they made contact with Aghdam at 2 a.m. Tuesday, when they found her snoozing in her car, and then called the family to say everything was “under control.”
Here brother said that cops told him they would keep an eye on her…
The cops told him they’d keep an eye on the 38-year-old — but 12 hours later, she opened fire at YouTube’s San Bruno offices, wounding three people before turning the gun on herself.
“So they didn’t do anything and she got killed,” her brother told KGTV. “And three or four more people got hurt.”
Amazing.
Just to be clear, I’m not necessarily blaming the cops here. I don’t think we have enough information to make that charge yet. Could they have picked her up and questioned her even though she hadn’t done anything illegal? I don’t think so. Perhaps if her brother knew exactly what she was going to do and communicated that to the cops, they could have had cause to question her. But “she might do something” is pretty vague, and Mountain View is almost 30 miles or so away from YouTube HQ. And that’s a pretty big distance to ‘keep an eye’ on someone.
Perhaps some of our legal beagles could shed some light on this. But I think the bottom line is that these type of shootings are just very difficult to stop.
Here’s a little more info from Business Insider:
A day before a woman opened fire at YouTube headquarters, her father said he warned police that his daughter was upset with the company’s handling of her videos and might be planning to go to its offices, but authorities say her relatives gave no indication she might turn violent.
Police also said that Nasim Aghdam, who wounded three people before killing herself, had visited a gun range before Tuesday’s attack. She entered a courtyard at YouTube’s main offices south of San Francisco, pulled out a handgun and fired several rounds.
Her beef with the company was apparently how YouTube stopped monetizing her videos:
A law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press that Aghdam had a longstanding dispute with YouTube. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the case, said Aghdam used the name “Nasime Sabz” online.
A website in that name decried YouTube’s policies and said the company was trying to “suppress” content creators.
“Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views!” one of the messages on the site said. “There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!!!!!”
Aghdam “hated” YouTube and was angry that the company stopped paying her for videos she posted, her father, Ismail Aghdam, told the Bay Area News Group.
I think most could have empathized with her plight, at least somewhat. But to try and murder people over something like this is absolutely demented.