A woman shot and injured four people before killing herself at Google’s YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California, Police Chief Ed Barberini said.
Mr Barberini said the victims were transported to local hospitals on Tuesday afternoon. The woman found at the scene appeared to be dead of “a self-inflicted” gunshot wound, he said. No motive was given for the shooting.
Sepand Parhami, a YouTube software engineer, said he was having lunch on an outside patio when he heard shots and saw what looked to be a woman moving from a garage to the lobby of the building. He scrambled for the door and went inside as the woman started shooting, he said after the incident.
Zach Vorhies, a YouTube software engineer, said he saw a body on the ground with an apparent gunshot wound to the stomach. He said the victim was a heavy-set man lying in the courtyard outside the building, and that he then saw a police officer w entering with an assault rifle and ran out of the building through a rear exit.
Vadim Lavrusik, a product manager at YouTube, wrote earlier on Twitter that he and co-workers were barricaded inside a room at the 901 Cherry Ave headquarters, before later tweeting “Safe. Got evacuated. Outside now.”
"We continue to actively co-ordinate with local authorities and hospitals. Our security team has been working closely with authorities to evacuate the buildings and ensure the safety of employees in the area," said Alphabet, Google's parent company.
The Stanford Health Care centre expected four to five patients from the shooting, according to Lisa Kim, a hospital spokeswoman. Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital,the city's major trauma centre is located, said it had received patients from the incident. Hospital spokesman Brent Andrew declined to provide numbers of patients or release information on the condition of those admitted.
The FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responded to the scene. US President Donald Trump is aware of and monitoring the situation, according to White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
San Bruno is a city 17 kilometres south of downtown San Francisco, adjacent to San Francisco International Airport. The city has been the home of YouTube, the world’s largest online video site, for more than a decade. It unofficially marks the beginning of Silicon Valley and is also home to a major Walmart e-commerce office.
A Google employee at a nearby complex to the YouTube office said several police sirens were heard around the office and that colleagues inside the building were texting updates. Videos and photos posted to Snapchat show police officers running into the YouTube offices. People were also seen evacuating the offices with their hands up in the air, according to the videos. Television reports showed police officers searching people who left the building to check for weapons.
Across the nation, the gun control debate has gained increasing attention, both from voters and legislators. Congress recently bolstered the federal background check system for gun purchases as part of a larger spending bill and an additional report clarified that the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention could study the causes of gun violence. Additional measures have been passed at the state level.
