YouTuber Kyle Long was arrested on Sunday in Mountain View, California, for allegedly threatening violence if his meeting with the platform didn’t go as planned.
Long, 33, had driven over 3,000 miles from his home in Waterville, Maine, to the headquarters of Google, which owns YouTube, in California. According to his wife, Samantha Long, her husband became angry when he discovered that a YouTube video he’d uploaded on how to get rich quickly had been taken down, along with his account. However, Samantha didn’t tell him that she was the one who took down the video, not YouTube.
“I just didn’t tell him it was me taking it down because I didn’t want him losing his shit in front of my kids,” she said to BuzzFeed News. She described the video as “bizarre” and said she was worried about his mental health.
According to Samantha, as well as Long’s father, Kevin, Long became obsessed with the deleted video and planned to pitch Google executives directly about the ideas in the video, believing that it would make them huge amounts of money and that they would pay him millions for his ideas. Long’s father called the plan “bizarre and crazy” and his wife told BuzzFeed News she tried to talk him out of it when he gave her a mock presentation.
“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,” said Samantha. According to Samantha, he never made any threats of violence against Google in front of her.
Mountain View police received warning of Long from an Iowa state trooper who said that something wasn’t right about how upset Long was about going to see Google. Long was arrested on Sunday in Mountain View, where they found three baseball bats in his car.
Both Long’s father and wife attributed his actions to his mental health. According to Kevin, Long has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has had several issues with law enforcement since he stopped taking his medication. Samantha told BuzzFeed News that she hopes the arrest leads to her husband getting the help he needs.
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H/T BuzzFeed News
