On Sunday, police in Mountain View, California, where Google is headquartered, arrested a man who drove more than 3,300 miles from Maine to discuss what he thought was the company’s removal of his YouTube account and the one video he’d posted – one about getting rich quick.
It was not, in fact, deleted by YouTube. It turns out, his wife deleted it, concerned as she was about her husband’s mental state. She told BuzzFeed News that the video, created by 33-year-old Kyle Long, was “rambling” and “bizarre.”
According to a press release from the Mountain View police department (MVPD), Iowa State Patrol on Friday gave them a heads-up about Long’s journey. Iowa police spoke to Long twice that day: once when he got into a collision (without injuries) and then again after he vandalized a restroom at a gas station store a short time later.
Employees at the gas station store didn’t want to press charges, and the collision didn’t warrant Long’s detention, so Iowa police let him go.
Three baseball bats and a serious need to chat
Then, on Sunday, the MVPD got another heads-up. This one came from police in Long’s hometown of Waterville, Maine. Waterville police told MV police that they’d been tipped off about Long having made it to California. They’d also gotten a tip that he intended to resort to physical violence if his meeting with Google execs didn’t go well.
MVPD began to look into the matter …and kept an eye out for Long’s arrival. Officers were stationed in and around Googleplex, and monitoring all the major highways around the city in order to intercept Long before he could step foot on Google’s main campus.
On Sunday afternoon, around 1pm, they spotted Long’s car. When they stopped him, they found three baseball bats.
Family says he’s not violent
That doesn’t mean he meant to hurt anybody, according to his father – Kevin Long – and his wife, Samantha Long.
BuzzFeed News quoted Kevin Long:
All he wanted was to get [the video] back online. Something is wrong with him.
Samantha Long:
Do I think he would have hurt anybody at Google, absolutely not. He was just trying to make the world a better place.
She said that her husband, who’s been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, didn’t want to argue with YouTube about his video being deleted. Rather, he wanted to pitch the content of the video to the company directly. Kyle Long was so convinced that his money-making scheme was solid, he thought it would result in an immediate payout from Google …one that he was sure would be worth a billion.
Samantha Long was on the receiving end of his pre-cross-country pitch:
He made me sit down, and he did a mock presentation to me.
After he got his billion-dollar payout, she said, her husband planned to head down to Mexico with the money.
She tried to talk him out of it. She said YouTube wouldn’t give him any money for his idea.
He dismissed her as being short-sighted. Samantha Long:
You can’t talk Kyle down from anything if he’s got his mind set. He told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and that I didn’t have the mind that he has – that I’m not open minded and I’m basic.
Why three bats?
Samantha told BuzzFeed News that there’s a simple, non-scary explanation for the baseball bats: the couple has three kids. The kids play in Little League, Long himself plays in a softball league, and his wife said that she’s sure that the bats were accompanied by baseballs and gloves.
The MVPD arrested Long for allegedly making criminal threats. His car was towed, and as of Tuesday, he was being held on $25,000 bail at the Santa Clara County Jail.
Bryan
…but what’s the money-making idea?
:,)
Riggarob
She said he was crazy about it… LOL!
Bryan
> He told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and that I didn’t have the mind that he has – that I’m not open minded and I’m basic.
Sounds like she needs to leave him. What complete arrogance and condescension…to anyone, let alone your wife.
Lisa Vaas
I can see why she wouldn’t: They have three children. He’s suffering from bipolar disorder, which causes sufferers to do, and say, some seriously messed up things. I trust that she knows him well enough to decide for herself if he’s a serious threat. Having said that, I hope he gets the psychiatric help he needs before he does, in fact, do something violent, be it to Google employees or his family.
Bryan
You’re right–and I hope so too.
In light of your comment I felt a guilty judgmental twinge having not verified whether he’s stabilizing a medication dosage or something.
However, I then read the BF article, which (he also drove drunk and killed his friend) states he’s stopped taking medication altogether. I was premature, but further reading reinforced my stance.
I’ve had interactions with bipolar disorder and can attest to the hateful things one can hear from someone you love. They range from “where the hell did THAT come from?” to embodying a line from Toad the Wet Sprocket:
God damn the wounds that show how deep a word can cut.
Only Kyle Long can make the decision to get help. If bipolarism causes him to treat his wife that way–and likely his own children–there’s only so far he can lean on illness as an excuse before he takes ownership for the things coming out of his mouth.
It’s entirely possible he was medicated–she never saw this side of him–until after they married. While “false advertising” would be crude here, it bears a heavy twist on the phrase “not the man I married.”
There’s no telling what that sort of environment will do to those kids–at which point will we stop feeling bad for them and in turn label them abusive parents? The cycle needs to break now, or it cycles again as more people are abused, with a new antagonist and new victims in the ever-revolving cast.
Famous last words:
I grew up this way–and I turned out fine.
When your situation hurts the people who love you, you owe it to the people you love. Get it fixed.
D C
Great comment .
Riggarob
Slippery slope. Now they’re arresting people before they even step foot on the property?
Lisa Vaas
His whereabouts don’t really play into the arrest. He wasn’t arrested for trespass, but rather for alleged threats.
Paul Ducklin
Well, he wasn’t arrested for criminal trespass, so the issue of exactly where he was arrested seems moot. Assuming that his threats related to Google, and that he’d said he was going there, he could presumably have been picked up anywhere between Iowa and Mountain View. Stopping him when he got close and onto MVPD’s turf seems a reasonable way to head him off. By then he obviously hadn’t changed his mind… neither was he actually at his destination yet. Seems a good technique for defusing what could have been a tricky situation if it had been dealt with only at the denouement. It doesn’t sounds as though his arrest came out of the blue with no probable cause…
Mahhn
Next year in the news; Maine Bat-man sues goog over stealing his million dollar idea, that goog made 20 million with. Judge tosses case out of court as the man had made the idea public when he posted it on Youtube the year prior. Goog counter sues him to ensure he spends the rest of his life in debt.
Moral, if you make a better mouse trap and want to sell it, just stfu and do it.
dilligaff@foobox.com
If you’re going to carry a baseball bat in your car, do your lawyer a favor and put a ball and glove in there too.
dhunter
How about you Americans pass a mandatory reporting law. When a person is diagnosed with a significant mental disorder requiring ongoing medications such as Bipolar Disorder; Doctors must report the person to the State Health Dept and are further obligated to schedule routine follow up appointments to ensure the patient is in fact taking their medication as directed – if that patient wishes to be wandering around society without supervision.
Doctors can get you off the streets by revoking your drivers license if warranted, I see no difference in doctors taking the crazies off the streets if they won’t take their medication or their condition is not under control.
NF
“How about you Americans…” Ha! So is your target audience US lawmakers that happen to be reading an IT security blog, or do you just like to point your finger at “the others” for all problems in the world?
It’s nice to be reminded here and again that the US isn’t the only place with people vilifying strangers and contributing to polarizing attitudes that stymie any actual progress.
God bless the internet.
Martin Niemöller
“First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the sick, the so-called incurables.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Bob
Seems a bit harsh, he needs help not jail.
Ian
Maybe he needs both. What’s wrong with providing help while keeping him away from the rest of the population?