NEW YORK (AP) — A man who has claimed for years that Google was torturing users with flashing lights crashed a car into a building near the company’s New York City headquarters, injuring three pedestrians, authorities said.
The man, 34, drove onto the sidewalk and crashed his Ford Fusion into a building on West 15th Street and 10th Avenue in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood just after 6 p.m. Tuesday, police said.
A 12-year-old girl and two women ages 50 and 47 were hit by the car, a police spokesperson said. They were hospitalized in stable condition.
The driver was arrested on charges including assault and attempted assault, police said. He had not yet been arraigned as of Wednesday and it was not clear if he had an attorney who could speak for him.
Images posted on social media show a homemade sign that says “Google Tortured Me!” and what appears to be a gasoline can at the crash scene, which is about a block from Google’s 15-story New York headquarters.
The man, who has worked as an Uber driver, filed a lawsuit in New York state court in Brooklyn in 2019 accusing Google of using blinding lights to operate a “social control program.”
He claimed in a 2021 Facebook post that Google’s Android operating system was flashing users in the eyes “for purposes of maliciously injury.”
He wrote in another Facebook post that year, “I guess Google thinks it’s ok to torture someone across their entire Android O.S ecosystem system, no security updates for almost 4 years.”