Facebook, Google bikes lead to tension with neighbours

A person rides a Google Inc. bicycle in front of the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California, U.S., on Wednesday, April 25, 2018. Alphabet Inc. is pushing efforts to roll back the most comprehensive biometric privacy law in the U.S., even as the company and its peers face heightened scrutiny after the unauthorized sharing of data at Facebook Inc. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

MENLO PARK, California: It started with a Facebook post. 

In early December, East Palo Alto Planning Commission member Kyra Brown was driving through Menlo Park when she spotted it: Four police cars, a fire truck and an ambulance surrounding a young black man in handcuffs. On the ground nearby, one of the baby-blue bikes Facebook provides to its employees lay on the ground.