YouTube content creator, Kyle Long angry about account taken down drives over 3300 miles to Google headquarters to demand his account be reinstalled only for his wife to have taken the account down. Brought three baseball bats along.
A YouTube video content creator incensed after believing Google had taken down his account has been arrested after driving more than 3300 miles from his home in Waterville, Maine, to Google’s headquarters in California, intent on confronting the tech giant to restore his account.
But what Kevin Long, 33, didn’t know, his father Kevin Long Sr told BuzzFeed News, was that the video and his account had been deleted not by YouTube, but his wife. Concerned about his mental state, the woman deleted her husband’s ‘rambling’ and ‘bizarre’ video only to blame YouTube to avoid a scene with her husband.
‘He came up with this crazy idea to make everyone millionaires,’ the father told buzzfeednews. ‘She told him Google or Facebook must have took it down because you can’t put stupid shit on there.’
According to the family, Long who has had a history of mental health issues, became fixated on the video and told family and friends he would make the cross-country trip to convince Google, which owns YouTube, to restore the content.
‘He had good intentions — he wanted to solve world hunger and this and that,’ Kevin Long said of his son, who he said was convinced his video would solve the world’s problems. ‘It was bizarre and crazy, and it wasn’t going to happen.’
Instead, Kyle Long was arrested Sunday by Mountain View police in California on suspicion of making threats against Google.
The arrest follows Long earlier that day speaking to Iowa officers while en route to Google Headquarters, telling them he was going ‘to meet with Google after his YouTube channel had been shut down, which he claimed was resulting in him losing money.’
The communications were passed on to waiting authorities.
Google declined to comment on the matter.
Kyle Long not the only unstable YouTube content creator seeking physical recourse:
The incident comes nearly a year after another YouTuber, Nasim Aghdam opened fire at the company’s headquarters, injuring three people before killing herself in San Bruno.
That shooter had driven to YouTube’s headquarters from San Diego after she alleged the company ‘discriminated and filtered’ her vegan and animal rights videos.
A spokesperson for Mountain View police told BuzzFeed News that Kyle Long didn’t threaten specific people at Google, but that the Maine resident had ‘made general threats of violence towards unknown people if the meeting regarding his YouTube channel didn’t go as he wanted it to.’
When Kyle Long was taken into custody Sunday, police said they found three baseball bats inside his car.
Kevin Long said his son may have been upset, but never mentioned resorting to violence.
‘All he wanted was to get it back online,’ he said. ‘Something is wrong with him.’
Kyle Long YouTube content creator Bipolar Disorder:
Sunday’s arrest is not the first time Kyle Long has been in trouble with the law, something that his father attributed to his mental health.
His son was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he said, and he continued to have encounters with police when he stopped taking his medication.
In 2015, after he led police in a slow-speed pursuit on an interstate, Kevin Long said Kyle told him he thought he was receiving a presidential escort, which is why he didn’t pull over.
‘I just know it’s been a mess and it’s been a revolving door,’ the father said. ‘He goes to jail and he gets no help.’
