Female shooter dead and multiple injured at YouTube's headquarters
San Francisco: A female shooter has allegedly opened fire at YouTube's headquarters in California, injuring three people before apparently turning the gun on herself in a domestic-related incident, local police say.
Police received multiple emergency calls at about 12.46pm on Tuesday (5.46am Wednesday AEST) from terrified employees inside the building in the heart of Silicon Valley, about half an hour south of San Francisco.
Employees evacuate the YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California after reports of an active shooter.
Photo: Twitter/erinjeancSan Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said officers arrived to find one man and two women with gunshot injuries.
Police then searched the building and found the suspected female shooter in one of the campus' courtyards with a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound and a handgun, he said.
Television footage showed a blown out window metres away from the woman's body.
"It was very chaotic," Barberini said, describing scenes of hundreds of employees fleeing from the building with their hands in the air.
Authorities are treating the incident as a case of domestic or workplace violence rather than an act of terrorism.
Television footage showed a window blown out metres from where the female shooter's body was found at the YouTube headquarters.
Photo: KTVULocal television station KTVU reported that the male victim was the alleged shooter's boyfriend and worked at YouTube.
San Francisco General Hospital said a man, 36, was in critical critical, a 32-year-old woman was in a serious condition and a 27-year-old woman was in a stable condition.
One witness, Jesse, told MSNBC that he was getting a hamburger at nearby fast food restaurant Carl's Jr when he heard up to ten shots fired in quick succession.
Employees evacuated the building with their hands in the air.
Photo: SnapchatA woman then ran out of the YouTube building with a gunshot wound to her foot. Diners helped to drag her into Carl's Jr.
Michael Finney, who was working at the restaurant, said he used a bungee cord to stop the bleeding.
"She was pretty calm," he said. "I asked her why someone would shoot her and she said she didn’t know."
Jesse said he ran back towards the office and looked through the doorway and saw a woman lying on the ground.
“She was dead, I’m sure of it,” he told reporters. “Those 10 shots were rapid fire - it was no mercy. There were four more shots after that."
Police searched the building and found a female suspect with self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
Photo: APYouTube product manager, Todd Sherman, posted on Twitter that he was in a meeting when he felt the floor rumbling from the footfalls of employees racing for the exit. He initially thought it was an earthquake.
As he evacuated, people were saying that there was an active shooter who had then shot herself.
"I looked down and saw blood drips on the floor and stairs," he said. "[I] peeked around for threats and then we headed downstairs and out the front."
A person is searched near the YouTube headquarters in California.
Photo: KGO-TVA Twitter user named Erin began posting at 3.52pm, local time, asking if there was a shooting at YouTube headquarters.
She then posted a series of photos from a neighbouring building showing employees being led out with the hands in the air.
"People are running out of the building with their hands up. I can’t believe I am watching this," she posted.
"Ambulances are in front of the building, sirens everywhere, police with rifles surrounding the building. They are bringing someone down out of the building."
Vadim Lavrusik, a product manager at YouTube, wrote on Twitter that he and coworkers were barricaded inside a room, before later tweeting "Safe. Got evacuated. Outside now."
An employee told Fairfax Media that, as she was evacuating, she saw a person "down".
"It was very, very scary," she said.
Less than three per cent of mass shootings in the US in the past three decades were carried out by females, according to data compiled by news site Mother Jones.
The last was Tashfeen Malik, who carried out an Islamic State-inspired shooting with her husband in San Bernadino, California in 2015.
San Bruno is a city 17 km south of downtown San Francisco and is 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.
US President Donald Trump tweeted his thanks to first responders.
Support is available for those who may be distressed by phoning Lifeline 13 11 14; Mensline 1300 789 978; Kids Helpline 1800 551 800; beyondblue 1300 224 636.
with Bloomberg