On April 3, 2018, at 12:46 p.m., a lone shooter attacked YouTube’s headquarters in my home town of San Bruno, California. As a small city of 42,957 souls, San Bruno normally has a single dispatcher on shift. In an amazing stroke of coincidence, the dispatcher who took the first YouTube call was also on shift during the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion.
After more calls started coming in, San Bruno’s mutual aid pact with Burlingame was activated, bringing more dispatchers online to handle the 120 calls that came in over the next hour.
San Bruno Police (SBPD) records staff also pitched in, picking up 80 of the first calls and helping with calls from the media, which came in a scant 10 minutes after the first 911 call was made.
Public information about the female shooter detailed how she had purchased a S&W 9mm pistol with 10 round magazines around 60 days prior to the shooting, had traveled some 300 miles from her home in Southern California to San Bruno, and had practiced at the Jackson Arms Shooting Range from 11:00-11:30 a.m. before driving to the YouTube HQ.
After the shooting, SBPD pulled video footage from the range where the shooter could be seen taking 20 minutes to fire her first shot, which didn’t even hit the paper. It was apparent from the video she had no idea how to handle a firearm.
Background
YouTube has several separate buildings in a business park bounded by San Bruno Ave., Sneath Lane, Highway 280 and El Camino Real. Other tech companies in the same area are Walmart online, Cisco and Oracle.
YouTube’s 197,000 square foot main building at 901 Cherry St. is two stories tall, with a parking garage underneath. The garage opens onto Bayhill Drive, which is shared with the Bayhill shopping center. The patio area is above the parking garage.
At approximately 12:43 p.m., the shooter arrived at the YouTube Headquarters Campus and entered a parking garage on foot from Bayhill Drive. She was carrying a purse over her left shoulder and walked directly to a pedestrian door leading to the patio area between the parking structure and the YouTube building. Immediately after entering the courtyard, the shooter was contacted by a YouTube employee who requested that she produce a YouTube Identification Badge.
She ignored the employee, reached into her purse with her right hand and removed a pistol. Upon seeing the pistol, the YouTube employee immediately fled and dialed 911. The shooter walked east through the courtyard and began firing indiscriminately into a crowd of employees eating lunch. She shot through the first magazine, reloaded, and continued firing at the building and into the crowd. As she approached a glass door to the building which she had shot through, she turned the pistol on herself, firing it into her chest. A total of twenty ejected shell casings were located at the scene and one round remained in the firearm.
One of the injured, who was shot in the calf, ran across Bayhill Drive to a Carl’s Jr., where 21-year-old Michael Finney, a quick-thinking crew member, used a bungee cord as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding after direct pressure with napkins and a sweatshirt failed.
A “helpful” YouTube employee pulled a fire alarm to let people know to evacuate the building. We’ll discuss this later.
Table Tops and Quick Response
Realizing that a large number of tech companies in a small area could require special handling, in 2015 a public/private safety group was created to bring together the major tenants. Most of the meetings were centered on where to park company-run shuttles and how to handle traffic for the large number of employees coming into the area every day.
Separately from this group, SBPD and YouTube had been working together on active shooter response including tabletop exercises and building walkthroughs. A tabletop had been completed just the week before the shooting.
It took just one minute after the first call came in before the first patrol rolled up onto Cherry Avenue and within minutes, several other patrols and sergeants showed up. After releasing and deploying his rifle, a cop was directed up the Bayhill Drive stairs to the patio area where a YouTube employee tapped him through the metal gate with his cardkey.
While he was attempting to secure the area, a team had come up from the front of the building. When they reached the patio area one of them tried to open the glass door – which had been shot – and it shattered, surprising both the team inside and the single cop outside. Someone yelled, “Watch the crossfire.” At this time, it was determined that the identified shooter was deceased.
While officers were responding to the threat, Lt. Troy Fry, the first command staff to arrive, became the incident commander and set up a command post and a location for responding media. Lt. Fry was relieved by Lt. Ryan Johansen who remained in command. Ed Barberini, San Bruno’s chief of police, was not immediately on site since he was in plainclothes and on his way to opening day at Giant’s stadium. As soon as he was paged, he fought traffic to return to base, change into his uniform and headed out to the command post.
Remember the note at the top of this article about tactical training for all officers? In the entire description above and in the rest of this article, you will notice that the acronym SWAT never appears (okay, just this once). The scene was secured by responding patrol and traffic officers and sergeants. If you look at school and other active shooter attacks, the same is true most of the time. This is why the National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA) states that every law enforcement professional needs tactical training – even new patrol officers.
Search and Release
Because it was not yet known that there was only one shooter, command staff developed search assignments for teams to clear the building. YouTube security worked in concert with SBPD to locate, evacuate, search and house the employees in other buildings. Chief Barberini credits YouTube’s security staff and the company’s employee training for a smooth transition from an active shooter to a search for additional shooters.
Officers went floor to floor and room to room locating employees and sending them outside to line up to be searched before YouTube security sent them to other buildings for processing and counseling if necessary. Many photos and videos show employees holding laptops and cellphones while waiting in line.
When officers approached a closed door and yelled for occupants to come out with their hands up, one employee opened the door holding a tripod. I don’t know about you, but a tripod can look a lot like an AR when you’re stressed.
- Lesson learned: Work with local companies to train civilians to have their hands empty if police ask them to come out with their hands up.
Other Lessons Learned
By the end of the response, there were 120 responders on scene from various departments, but only 80 of them checked in at the command post.
The initial command post was set up too close to the incident, making it hard for responders to get to it so it had to be relocated.
San Bruno Fire responded but was not sure where they should stage since the incident was still hot. A plan was made to pursue additional training between police and fire.
It was known that the shooter was on the patio but without the action of a YouTube employee to let the officer through the locked gate, he would have had to shoot his way in.
Once it was determined that the patio threat was neutralized, officers reported the area as “stable” and “static.” Is there a difference between stable and static? If a shooter has paused, the situation might be static, but it is certainly not stable.
- Lesson Learned: Chief Barberini will be working with his staff on consistent terminology to describe various stages of a situation.
Because of their pre-planning and tabletops, officers had maps of the building and already were familiar with the layout. However, while performing searches, they were stopped by doors with cardkeys or combination locks. In my first article for Police1, I talk about pre-planning and why it’s a good move to ensure responding officers have access to keys, maps and emergency contact lists before an incident occurs.
- Lesson Learned: Work with local businesses on how to access locked areas of a building when police respond.
When officers first arrived, they came across wounded employees. The accepted training is that the threat is neutralized first before victims are treated. As Pacifica police Officer Joseph Gomez ran up YouTube’s front stairs, he discovered a man bleeding profusely from a sucking chest wound, which had punctured his lung. Since no shots were being fired, Gomez stopped. Using a gunshot wound kit he purchased with his own money and training he pursued on his own time, Officer Gomez dressed the wounds and provided aid before the medics arrived. Officer Gomez was presented with the Departmental Life Saving Medal for his actions.
- Lesson Learned: Chief Barberini is going to pursue the purchase of gunshot wound kits and add additional training for the first 10-12 minutes of a response. Maybe your agency can work with local businesses to help fund kits and training not only for your officers, but to have on premises in case they are needed.
That Fire Alarm
Fire alarms have been pulled several times by a well-meaning citizen during an active shooter event. During the Parkland shooting, the suspect pulled the fire alarm.
Throughout the room to room search, you can hear YouTube’s fire alarm blaring on video from officers’ body worn cameras. This makes it hard for them to hear aural clues, which could get them killed, interferes with civilian ability to hear orders and is just plain annoying.
- Lesson Learned: Train civilians to pull a fire alarm only if there is a fire. If a fire alarm is triggered, either someone who works at the site or first responders need to know how to silence it.
To Wrap Up
The way that lessons are learned from any incident is through the hot wash. But how do you perform a hot wash with 120+ responders? SBPD ran multiple sessions and included critical incident stress debriefs as well.
San Bruno had a dispatch mutual aid agreement with another local agency to add manpower in minutes. Other staff were able to take calls, including those from the media. San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini attributed his department’s quick and accurate response to training and tabletop exercises. He has completed arrangements with YouTube for quick access for first responders and has committed to working with other San Bruno businesses, including the office park’s public/private safety group, on active shooter planning.
In summary, his agency was ready, they responded with courage and valor, and they are addressing the small shortcomings they experienced to make a future response better. Yeah, I’m pretty proud of my little community.
