SandyMaloneMountain View, CA – Mountain View police released the dispatch radio traffic, and two police officers’ bodycam videos, from their interaction with the YouTube shooter, just hours before she went on her rampage (video below).
Officers found Nasim Aghdam asleep in her car in a parking lot at about 1:40 a.m. on April 3, KABC reported.
When the officers ran her license plate information, they received an “at risk” missing person alert. However, there was no information about what circumstances made Aghdam “at risk” other than the fact she had never been missing before.
In the video, officers determined that the woman sleeping in the backseat of the Pontiac matched Aghdam’s description in the missing person report filed by her father, but they waited to wake her up until they had gathered as much information as possible.
During this time, even more officers responded to the parking lot, the video showed.
Finally, the officers tapped on the car window and shined their flashlights on her to wake her up.
“Are you Nasim?” the officer asked when the woman finally woke up and opened her window.
“Yes,” she replied.
“You were reported as missing from San Diego,” the officer told her.
“Yeah, I left my family,” Aghdam told him.
In the video, the officer asked her why she left, and she told them they didn’t get along. She explained that she was living out of her car while she was job hunting.
Aghdam told police that she’d left her phone behind so her family wouldn’t be able to contact her, but she gotten another one to use. The officer asked her for the new number.
The officers asked her if she was taking any medication, or if she was supposed to be taking any medication, and she answered no to both questions.
They also asked her if she wanted to hurt herself or anybody else, and she answered in the negative to those questions as well.
Aghdam acted calmly, politely, and rationally throughout the entire exchange, the video showed.
Police advised the 37-year-old woman that they would have to contact her father and tell him they had found her unharmed, but they told her officers would let him know that she did not wish to be contacted.
Then police would be able to take the missing person report about her out of their system, the officer explained.
Aghdam asked the officers if it was legal for her to be there, and they assured her she was fine, and they had stopped to check her vehicle because the parking lot was a popular dump spot for stolen cars.
Police said a friendly goodbye, Aghdam thanked them, and the video ended as officers returned to their patrol vehicles.
Later that day, she showed up on the YouTube campus in San Bruno, and opened fire, shooting and wounding three people before turning the gun on herself.
In the wake of the shooting, her family told investigators that Aghdam was very angry with changes YouTube had made that disrupted traffic to her websites.
Aghdam, a southern California resident, had accused both YouTube and Google, which owns the platform, of intentionally damaging her website by lowering her ranking in search results, The New York Times reported.
Recently, she told family members that YouTube was paying her less for her four channels, and that her videos were being censored. Aghdam also told her family that she “hated” the company.
“She was angry,” her father, Ismail Aghdam said, according to The New York Times.
He said that his family emigrated from Iran in 1996, and that his daughter never displayed any signs of violence prior to Tuesday, USA Today reported. He described her as an animal-lover, who held strong beliefs about vegan-related issues.
Public records indicated that Aghdam founded an animal-rights charity called Peace Thunder Inc., and that she also spent time training to be a pilot, USA Today reported.
According to her website, Aghdam had YouTube channels in English, Turkish, and Farsi, and devoted a fourth to “hand art.” The channels had been removed as of Wednesday morning.
According to The New York Times, Aghdam discussed veganism, Persian culture, and animal cruelty in many of her videos. She also provided aerobics tutorials, and performed musical parodies.
On her website, Aghdam blasted YouTube for what she perceived to be censorship of her content.
“New close-minded youtube employees, got control of my farsi youtube channel last year 2016 & began filtering my videos to reduce views & suppress & discaurage me from making videos!” she said on her site. “There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!!!!!”
Watch the bodycam videos of officers’ interaction with the shooter in the video below: