joining us for our midday newscast I'm Marcus Washington. Well, today Google is hosting its I o developers conference. And as thousands of people arrive at Shoreline Amphitheater for that event, protesters are planning to take advantage of the visibility. NBC Bay Area's Kris Sanchez joining us live from Mountain View this midday with the pro-Palestinian protests. Chris Well, hi there, Marcus. I want to show you here behind me, this is the main gate to get into a shoreline amphitheater where the Google I o developers conference is happening. You see all those folks standing around. That's because these protesters succeeded in shutting this main gate down. People had to turn around and go into another entrance about a quarter mile down the road. So clearly there was a disruption to the top of this event. These protesters were chanting, no tech for genocide. They are against the use of AI and cloud computing technology by Google and their contract with the Israeli government and the Israeli military. They used a lot of the imagery that we know from Google to make their points. They also object to Google's photos use for mass surveillance, which they say will likely come back to haunt us here at home because Google cannot get away with celebrating with bright colors and rainbows. And, you know, this sort of conference that's all about the positives that Google is doing for society when at the same time, Google is engaging in extremely shady and violent business by fueling a military that is committing a genocide that has already killed over 40,000. Why would they not use this technology that's being used on the Palestinian people against people back here in the United States, against our black and brown communities who are being pushed out because of Google, because of the tech bubble, because of gentrification. They will use this technology. Be right back here. As we are looking from video over the scene from Sky Ranger, you can see that the attendees were rerouted and a lot of them were sent about a quarter mile down the road in order to get into the conference. There was a real disruption, though, because all of the security and screening equipment was down here, where we are about a quarter mile away. But you saw as those protesters walked in and then flooded the gates, moved the barricades, and then successfully chained themselves together to form that human chain. I tried to talk to some of the folks who were waiting in line. The attendees. No one really had much to say except for one man who says he supports it. But he's also frustrated. This is nothing new. I've been working for technology for the last 20 years, and all companies , big companies in the United States, have partnerships somehow with Israel. I can't say that because Google has a company, a research team over there is causing this. Obviously, they're supporting they have a business going on in Israel. I understand that, but I can't really say that that is causing anything new now. He went on to say that he supports the protests. He understands what the protesters are trying to do. But he says when it reaches the level of disrupting regular people, it's just too much. He was frustrated with the delay in getting into the conference, frustrated with the delay in graduations and commencements across the country as well. Now, you might remember that in the last couple of weeks, Google fired 50 employees for protesting the war in Gaza. They are protesting the work of Project Nimbus as well. Meanwhile, a Bay Area family wants answers about Doctor Holly Sheikholeslami, a Sutter Health doctor who was on a medical mission in Gaza and now cannot get out. So the protest here has wrapped up. The protesters unchained themselves. They are now making their way about two blocks down where they are going to gather for a public rally. Anyone can join there, but they felt pretty empowered by the fact that they were able to disrupt this really big developers conference, disrupt Google, and shut down this main gate. And they did it just really smoothly. And it was it was
