The YouTube shooter was identified by multiple news outlets Tuesday evening as Nasim Aghdam, a Middle Eastern woman with a grudge against the company.
NBC News said she was a 39-year-old woman whose last known address was in San Diego and whose middle name is Najafi.
ABC News reported similarly, citing “two law-enforcement officials.”
JUST IN: Two law enforcement sources say authorities have preliminarily identified the YouTube shooter as Nasim Aghdam, a woman with previous addresses in the Southern California cities of Riverside and San Diego. https://t.co/vmWDgKsXJc
— ABC News (@ABC) April 4, 2018
While she was not a YouTube employee, NBC Bay Area reported that she had a YouTube channel and would frequently use it to post rants against the company.
According to NBC, she accused YouTube in January 2017 in a video of having “discriminated and filtered” her content.
She continued the theme the next month in a Facebook post, saying “there is not equal growth opportunity on You Tube.”
Another San Francisco news outlet — TV station KRON-4 — had reported earlier Tuesday evening that the shooter had driven up from San Diego on Tuesday.
The attacker, who had not been officially identified Tuesday evening, wounded three people at YouTube’s campus in San Bruno, California, before killing herself.
One of the three victims — a male still in critical condition Tuesday evening — had been identified as the attacker’s boyfriend and the intended target. Two other people suffered gunshot wounds and a fourth person was taken to a hospital with an ankle injury suffered in the panicked evacuation.
ABC News had reported earlier, also citing “two law-enforcement officials” but without naming her, that the attacker had no direct connection to YouTube.
Authorities are investigating the shooting as a domestic dispute and not as an act of terrorism.
The attacker had been described by witnesses as “a white, adult female wearing a dark top and head scarf,” but the names “Nasim” and “Najafi” are typically Middle Eastern.
According to NBC Bay Area, she used the ID “NasimWonder1” for her YouTube channel.
The “About” section identified her as “Nasim the Persian Azeri female vegan bodybuilder, also animal rights activist promoting healthy and humane living. Nasim produced and launched the first Persian TV commercial and music video (Do You Dare) regarding animal rights and veganism through international Iranian satellite Television in 2010.”
According to a screen grab posted by NBC Bay Area reporter Vicki Nguyen, before the page got taken down, its header complained that “This Channel Also Got Filtered & Demonetized By Youtube!”
The @nbcbayarea Investigative Unit confirms identity of YouTube shooter as 38 yr old Nasim Aghdam who may also have other aliases. She had a YouTube video channel. Law enforcement says she shot a man & two women before turning gun on herself on YouTube campus in San Bruno. pic.twitter.com/1FjhxMtZcg
— Vicky Nguyen (@VickyNguyenTV) April 4, 2018
The channel had been taken down late Tuesday evening for “multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s policy against spam, deceptive practices, and misleading content or other Terms of Service violations.”
NBC Bay Area also matched the license plate on a car registered to Ms. Aghdam to the one towed from the shooting site.
“In 2014, she posted a video on YouTube of what appears to be the same car, stating that it was vandalized by ’anti-vegans’ because the car had a sign saying ’meat is murder,’ ” NBC Bay Area reported.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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