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‘Gunwoman’ opens fire at YouTube HQ, three rushed to hospital

Updated A shooter, believed to be a woman, has opened fire at the headquarters of YouTube in San Bruno, California, injuring at least three people. She was found dead at the scene.

The city’s cops confirmed to The Register the Silicon Valley offices of the video-sharing giant experienced an active shooting today just before 1pm Pacific Time.

San Francisco General Hospital is treating a 36-year-old man, who is in a critical condition, and two women, aged 32 and 27, who are in serious and fair condition respectively. All three have gunshot injuries.

Another women, understood to be the shooter, died of apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds near the YouTube campus.

A few hundred staff fled the site, some with their hands up after the cops arrived. One witness claimed as many as 20 shots were fired. The website’s base, at 901 Cherry Avenue in the small city, was surrounded by officers, with the public told to stay away. The FBI are on standby.

Earlier, some employees barricaded themselves in their offices after someone triggered a fire alarm and reports spread of a shooting during lunch on an outside patio. A number of calls flooded the 911 emergency line.

One YouTube manager reported seeing blood on the floor and stairs before being evacuated and ushered to safety by police.

“We are coordinating with authorities,” a spokesperson for YouTube said.

“We advised all other employees in the Bay Area, and people with meetings scheduled, to stay away from the area, and that there is no need to take any action. We have provided employees a helpline.”

There is no confirmation of any motive, although it is speculated a woman opened fire on her boyfriend. Google-owned YouTube has been in and out of the news over its handling of trolls and fake news regarding a high-school shooting in Florida.

Updated to add

According to San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini, officers arrived on the scene at 12.48pm, and found a total of four people injured as described above.

Of those, one was a woman dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, and is believed to be the shooter. Two of those injured were found in what was described as “an adjacent business” – this may well be a separate building on the YouTube campus, or the Carl’s Jr burger joint next door.

Barberini stopped short of declaring that woman to be the shooter, though the police chief did say the incident is now an investigation.

This is a developing story. We will update it with more information as it arrives.

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Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/03/youtube_hq_active_shooter/

  • 03/04/2018
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