In the second such incident in San Francisco, a journalist was assaulted for wearing Google Glass.
Business Insider's Kyle Russell was in Mission District covering a protest march against a Google employee, who was evicting some tenants in the area. After covering the protest, Russell put on his glasses and walked into the area.
"My colleague and I were on our way to the 16th Street BART station when a person put their hand on my face and yelled, 'Glass!' In an instant the person was sprinting away, Google Glass in hand," said Russell, recounting his experience to the Business Insider.
After leading Russell on a short chase, the assaulter smashed the Google Glass into the ground and fled the scene. The journalist gave details of the assaulter and filed a complaint with the police.
Russell's initial Twitter post on the incident drew sympathetic responses from friends. However, resentment soon began pouring against tech giants like Google, according to Business Insider.
"As responses have flooded in and I've looked back on the situation, I've started to understand where the people barraging me with angry tweets are coming from," Russell said.
He went to say, "Unfortunately, anything associated with Google has come to represent gentrification in the city, from the buses that take young software engineers to their corporate campuses in Silicon Valley to Google Glass. This is especially true in areas where gentrification and income inequality have become points of conflict in the community."
Russell has now issued a call to action: efforts from tech companies to address the situation. "The optimist in me believes that both sides can come together to build a city we can all be happy living in," he said.
The first incident involving Glass happened in February when a tech writer walked into a San Francisco bar wearing the device. She later claimed she was robbed and assaulted. The incident sparked off intense debate on the use of Glass in public.
