A YouTuber Was Arrested For Trying To Confront Google After His Account Was Taken Down. His Wife Actually Deleted It.

Angry because his single YouTube video on how to get rich quickly had been taken down, 33-year-old Kyle Long drove more than 3,300 miles from his home in Waterville, Maine, to Google's headquarters in California, intent on convincing the tech giant to restore his account.

But what Long didn't know, relatives told BuzzFeed News, was that the video and his account had been deleted not by YouTube, but his wife. Concerned about his mental state, she deleted the "rambling" and "bizarre" video.

"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," Samantha Long, his wife, told BuzzFeed News. "He was mad initially, but I said I didn't know what happened."

Long's wife and father said the 33-year-old has had a history of mental health issues and became fixated on the video, telling friends and family he planned to talk to Google executives about it and was sure that his ideas would result in the company paying him millions of dollars.

"He came up with this crazy idea to make everyone millionaires," Kevin Long, his father, said. "He had good intentions — he wanted to solve world hunger and this and that. It was bizarre and crazy, and it wasn't going to happen."

When the video was deleted, his wife said, Long believed it was removed by YouTube officials and he decided to pitch the contents directly to the company.

Instead, Kyle Long was arrested Sunday by Mountain View police in California on suspicion of making threats against Google.

Google declined to comment on the matter.

The incident comes nearly a year after another YouTuber 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."

Samantha Long said her husband's idea of approaching Google officials about the video wasn't initially to confront them about the deletion, but to pitch the content of the video directly, thinking it would lead to an immediate payout from Google executives.

"He made me sit down, and he did a mock presentation to me," Samantha Long said.

After what he was sure to be a billion-dollar payout, she said, he planned to head down to Mexico with his fortune.

Samantha said she tried to talk him out of it and explain to him that YouTube would not pay him for the idea, but he would have none of it.

"You can't talk Kyle down from anything if he's got his mindset," she said. "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."

Mountain View Police Department

Kyle Long

So Kyle Long left their Maine home and headed originally toward Boston, she said, looking for Google offices there.

When he couldn't find them, she said, he called her from Kansas and told her he was on his way to the company headquarters in California.

By then, Mountain View police officers had already been on the lookout after getting warnings from their counterparts in Waterville, Maine, and the Iowa State Patrol about the cross-country trip.

Iowa State Patrol officers had spoken to Kyle Long twice, once after he was involved in a noninjury crash and another time for allegedly vandalizing gas station restroom.

The 33-year-old told a state trooper that he was on his way to Mountain View to talk to Google executives about his YouTube channel.

That prompted the agency to contact Mountain View police, after the trooper felt "something wasn't right when Long began talking about how upset he was at Google," the spokesperson said.

Waterville Police Deputy Chief William Bonney told BuzzFeed News they then received a call Sunday that Long was in California, and they passed the information along to Mountain View police.

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 [the video] back online," he said. "Something is wrong with him."

Samantha Long said he was upset over the video, but she never heard him threaten the company.

"Do I think he would have hurt anybody at Google, absolutely not," she said. "He was just trying to make the world a better place."

As for the three bats, she said their three kids play in little league, Long plays in a softball league, and she's sure they were accompanied by baseballs and gloves.

Samantha Long hasn't talked to her husband in days, but hopes the arrest might lead to him getting the help he needs.

"He's not a bad guy at all, and he's a great father," she said. "But when he's manic, you know, everything is wrong and he is right."

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.

At the age of 16, Kyle Long was convicted in the death of his friend, Michael Butler, when he crashed into a pole while intoxicated.

"When he got out everything seemed fine, but that's when the nightmares started," Kevin Long said.

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," he said. "He goes to jail and he gets no help."