Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/02/27/google_glass_hate_crime/

Woman claims she was assaulted in Google Glass 'HATE CRIME'

Specs snatched, foul words heard in San Francisco watering hole

By Neil McAllister in San Francisco

Posted in Bootnotes, 27th February 2014 01:57 GMT

Vid A California woman claims to have been the victim of a "hate crime" after allegedly being attacked in a San Francisco bar because she was wearing Google Glass.

"OMG so you'll never believe this but... I got verbally and physically asaulted [sic] and robbed last night in the city, had things thrown at me because of some wanker Google Glass haters," Sarah Slocum wrote on her Facebook page on Saturday.

The incident allegedly took place at Molotov's, a dive bar in the gritty Lower Haight neighborhood of San Francisco.

According to Slocum, she was showing "one of the normal, excited and curious individuals" how Glass worked when two "ugly, nasty, angry, jealous, confused and threatened" women started making rude gestures, calling her names, and throwing wet bar towels at her.

As the situation escalated, Slocum says, a man snatched the high-tech specs from her face and ran out of the bar with them, forcing Slocum and a male friend to make chase.

Slocum was eventually able to recover the headset – though not, she says, without a physical altercation between her male friend and the man who grabbed her Glass – but upon her return to the bar, her purse and mobile phone were nowhere to be found.

Slocum says she was able to capture some footage of the confrontation, which she started recording in the bar "to protect herself," and which she has since turned over to the police.

At the Molotov Bar on Haight Street for wearing Google Glass

Sarah Slocum says she shot this video with Google Glass during an alleged altercation

Since the incident, she has also taken to the media to tell her tale. At least two local television stations have aired interviews with her, and the story has been picked up by newspapers far and wide, even reaching across the pond to the esteemed Daily Mail.

"What makes this story special," Slocum wrote on Monday, "is that no one has experienced a hate crime or been targeted for a hate crime, which is what it was, for wearing Google Glass."

Google, at least, seems aware that some people don't take kindly to unwanted interactions with Glass. Earlier this month, the Chocolate Factory published a list of dos and don'ts for members of its Glass Explorer program, admonishing them to not be "creepy or rude (aka, a 'Glasshole')."

But Slocum can be forgiven for not having read the guidelines, since she apparently was not a program member herself.

"I realize that I represented the tech millionaires and billionaires in their eyes," Slocum wrote of her alleged attackers, "but that isn't me and I didn't even pay for my Google Glasses, one of my developer friends gave them to me because he wasn't using them and doesn't currently have time to develop an app for them right now."

The San Francisco Police Department has confirmed to El Reg via email that Slocum has indeed filed a police report about the alleged incident which roughly matches the account she related on Facebook.

But not everyone who replied to Slocum's posts agreed with her side of the story, arguing that a late-night punk rock bar was not the best place to whip out the fancy camera-fitted computer headgear.

"I am the women [sic] who was excited to try on your glasses," wrote Facebook user Sagesse Gwinn Graham. "I also witnessed what happened outside after the bar shut down. You were [...] very much instigating the altercation."

Slocum said she does not expect to recover her lost purse and phone, but says she hopes the video she recorded with her Glass will help to identify her alleged attackers, adding that the incident will not deter her from using the specs in future.

"I am always going to wear them now," Slocum wrote on Wednesday. "I'm not going to let these people or this incident deter me from using a incredible piece of technology and innovation that makes my life easier."

As of Thursday, the SFPD informs El Reg that no one is in custody related to the incident. ®