Apple employee commuter buses reportedly attacked near SF – CNET

Protest blocks Apple bus as Google bus passes

Protesters block an Apple bus as a Google bus passes in San Francisco in 2013.

Steven Rhodes/Getty Images

Windows have been smashed on five buses used to shuttle Apple employees around the San Francisco Bay Area in suspected pellet gun attacks during the past several days, the Guardian reported Wednesday.

The first incident occurred Friday as the commuter bus was traveling from the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, to San Francisco, the newspaper reported. Subsequent suspected attacks occurred Tuesday, according to an internal Apple memo obtained by the Guardian.

“There is nothing confirmed but it is suspected that a pellet gun might have been used in these incidents,” the email to employees said. “Luckily, no one seems to have been injured yet.”

The memo went on to say the commuter buses would avoid the Interstate 280 route until further notice. The peninsula corridor is also traveled by commuter buses provided by other Silicon Valley giants, including Google and Facebook.

The window smashings appear to be the latest escalation in a long simmering dispute in which buses operated by tech giants have become a symbol for wealth disparity and gentrification in the Bay Area. Protesters, who have targeted the commuter buses for many Silicon Valley tech giants, blame high-paid tech employees moving from Silicon Valley to San Francisco and Oakland with driving up rents and home prices in the area.

Demonstrators have typical staged protests blocking buses’ paths as they try to depart for the Valley, but at least one protest resulted in vandalism in 2013 when demonstrators broke a window of a Google commuter bus in Oakland.

Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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