It has now been about two and a half months since the
February 22, 2014 Google Glass robbery at Molotov's Bar on Haight Street. The assailant still hasn't been identified (though they thought they had) or come forward to the authorities, and the now identified bartender
Jamie Chow is refusing to cooperate with the investigation and give a testimony, and has since obtained counsel. Since then, another man in San Francisco,
+Kyle Russell, has been mugged and robbed for wearing
+Google Glass,
+Cecilia Abadie was told to remove her Glass on a flight for security reasons, and another guy in So. Cal had his
+Google Glass and computer robbed at taser point.
To summarize, on February 22, 2014,
Jamie Chow, the former Molotov's bartender provoked the incident by verbally accosting and threatening me for wearing
+Google Glass. Turning around she vehemently said "Fuck you Google..." and flipped me off. As stated in an article by
+Anisse Gross in
+The New Yorker titled
What's The Problem With Google Glass?, the anonymous now identified Chow confirmed saying:
“I couldn’t believe someone was wearing them in the bar,” she said. “It did not sit right with me. When she looked my way I flipped her off so she knew how I felt about her wearing them there.”
A few seconds later Jamie Chow told me I was "killing the city," divulging her perception that I was the icon for a large and omnipotent entity wreaking havoc on San Francisco. A few seconds after that her friend ripped them off my face and ran out of the bar, attempting to get away and/or smash them. I pursued him, eventually getting the
+Google Glass back, but had my purse, cell phone, keys, wallet, etc stolen during the assault, as I had left them behind in the bar in pursuit of the assailant. While Molotov's immediately fired Chow, they never turned over the video surveillance and have since been uncooperative with the investigation. Furthermore, Molotov's never extended an olive branch, and actually in the preceding weeks decided to ban
+Google Glass all together.
Kale Williams, a breaking news reporter and photographer at the
+SFGate, has now been identified as one of the four main individuals of the Molotov tech backlash group. After Jamie Chow accused me of "killing the city" and tried to rip the Google Glasses off my face, Kale Williams is seen in
the video at 36 seconds pointing a finger at me and saying "Fuck you." When I addressed his identity tweeting the above picture on May 9th, he didn't confirm or deny it, though it was quickly made light of by two other
+SFGate employees,
+Demian Bulwa and
+Vivian Ho:
Vivian Ho who reports on "crime and grime" for
+SFGate, similarly tweeted:
Incidentally, the
+SFGate was among the first to report on the incident in a February 24th article by
+Kurtis Alexander,
Woman: I was attacked in S.F. over Google Glass.
+Kurtis Alexander proceeded to report on the breaking news in a February 26th article,
Google Glass attack offers a new lens on privacy concerns, now the focus changed from assault and robbery to privacy. And though it mentions the "small group of people who didn't appear to take a liking to [the tech] paraphernalia," it fails to mention that one of those four main individuals was
Kale Williams IV of the SF Chronicle.
On March 21st, a month later, I finally
published a full description of the events, releasing full
video footage along with a transcription of what was said. I proceeded to send it out to all the interested parties, one being
+Kurtis Alexander. That same day I received an email back from Alexander saying "Looks like we might run a story about you — your supporters and your detractors..." I pressed him about what he meant about my "detractors" on the 22nd, and even when confronted he gave no indication of his or his employer's affiliation with the tech backlash party in question.
While on February 24th and 26th it is understandable that
+Kurtis Alexander and the
+SFGate may not have known that
+Kale Williams was present and involved, a month later it is extremely unlikely, especially since the full video footage had been released. Additionally, I believe that Alexander mentioned on the phone that there was in fact a
+SFGate reporter present at the incident, though he did not specify the person's identity and I did not press further thinking it irrelevant.
I eventually agreed to partake in the article and a week later on March 26th,
Sarah Slocum: the infamous face of Google Glass was published. After speaking with him the morning after the article was released he said he was receiving pressure from some saying he was being too nice to me. Were some of these people Williams or his friends? And/or friends of Jamie Chow and the unidentified
+Google Glass robber? Seems very likely. On March 28th I responded with an article of my own,
Slant by Kurtis Alexander and the SFGate.
What also seems telling is that
+Kale Williams has certainly tried to keep a low and discrete profile on the surface, despite what he might have been doing behind scenes. Not only has Williams not cooperated with the investigation or given a testimony to the police, he seems to have only made one tweet about
+Google Glass in the weeks and months following, retweeting Katie Conger's March 2nd tweet about the banning of it in some establishments:
Furthermore, yesterday on May 9th, I directly confronted
+Kurtis Alexander about the presence of one of their
+SFGate reporters at Molotov's and inquired if he knew the identity of the robber.
+Kurtis Alexander responded to the question about the presence of the
+SFGate reporter, saying he "hadn't heard that," but did not answer the direct question about the identity of the thief.
So while I've been the only person to come forward and put myself out there while reporting and testifying to being the victim of this tech backlash crime, and while I was the person that called 911 and made the police report, gave my recorded testimony and media to authorities, and gave my written testimony and media to the public, some have continued to question my story. To those all I have to say is that if so then why hasn't the accused
+Google Glass assailant come forward and been cooperating with the authorities, along with the three other main individuals - Jamie Chow, Kale Williams and their curly blond friend? And why hasn't Molotov's turned over their security camera footage? That would substantiate everything. At least Jamie Chow had the ovaries to give an interview to
+Anisse Gross, though only under the presumption of anonymity. So while I've also tried to maintain my faith in law enforcement, it is exceedingly becoming harder and harder almost three months later with no suspect let alone pressed charges.
