Female shooter at YouTube's headquarters
Police were responding on Tuesday to a mass shooting by a female suspect at the headquarters of YouTube in San Bruno, California, officials said.
As employees were pictured filing out of the building with their hands above their head, police in the city south of San Francisco warned people to stay away from the address where YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc's Google, is based.
Outside YouTube's headquarters as police respond.
Photo: SuppliedMultiple local media reports said the suspected shooter was a female who was killed at the scene.
One witness, Jesse, told MSNBC that he saw parts of the shooting unfold. He saw one woman with a gunshot wound to her leg or foot run into a neighbouring fast-food restaurant to take refuge, he said.
A second woman was shot "at least 10 times" and appeared to be dead, Jesse said.
"It was massive," he said. "That second person, she was dead."
Authorities are treating the incident as a case of domestic or workplace violence rather than an act of terrorism, the LA Times reported.
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.
YouTube 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 the shooter had shot herself.
"I looked down and saw blood drips on the floor and stairs," he said. "[I] peaked around for threats and then we headed downstairs and out the front."
A 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."
The LA Times, citing two law enforcement sources, reported that at least two people were struck by gunfire.
San Francisco General Hospital confirmed that it has received patients from the incident.
A San Bruno Police Department representative said they are responding to the reports. "We are trying figure that out now and are dealing with emergency calls only now," the representative said.
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.
A person is searched near the YouTube headquarters in California.
Photo: KGO-TVA Google employee at a nearby complex to the YouTube office said several police sirens were heard around the office and that colleagues inside of the building are texting them updates. Videos and photos posted to Snapchat show police officers running into the YouTube offices. People were also seen evacuating the offices in a line with their hands up in the air, according to the videos.
Parent company Alphabet Inc. said in a statement that it was investigating reports of a shooting.
Bloomberg, Fairfax Media