In an example of Google's all-seeing eye unintentionally capturing an unsettling moment in time: Richmond, California father Jose Barrera claims a satellite image that appears in Google Maps shows the body of his 14-year-old son Kevin after he was shot and killed near railroad tracks in 2009.
Although Kevin's murder has remained unsolved for four years, Barrera told KTVU he only learned of the image last week. The photo clearly shows a police car, several officers and a body lying near train tracks on the edge of Richmond. It is still online here. (Warning: the images are disturbing, even with the distance of a satellite photo.)
According to Google, the satellite photos used on Google Earth and Google Maps are constantly being updated and are generally about one to three years old. This particular image is watermarked with "Google 2011" although the murder occurred in 2009. "When I see this image, that's still like that happened yesterday,” Barrera told KTVU, “and that brings me back to a lot of memories.”
As technology analyst Rob Enderle explained, getting Google to take down the satellite photo may be difficult — the company is reluctant to take down a single photo because it may open the floodgates for others to request removal of photos they don't like. For Jose Barrera though, he says he just wants to catch the murderer and honor his son's memory.
Update: After Barrera brought the satellite image to the media's attention and filed a complaint with Google, the company has released a statement saying they're working to replace the photo. "Our hearts go out to the family of this young boy," Google Maps vice president Brian McClendon said in a statement. "Since the media first contacted us about the image, we've been looking at different technical solutions. Google has never accelerated the replacement of updated satellite imagery from our maps before, but given the circumstances we wanted to make an exception in this case. We believe we can update this in eight days, and we've spoken to the family to let them know we're working hard on the update."
[KTVU]