Dad says Google Maps shows son's dead body | Hacker News Reader

Dad says Google Maps shows son's dead body

cnn.com

29 pointsdkoch44 comments

Given Google blurs peoples faces, I suspect they are quite happy to blur / remove dead bodies.

So not sure what the real issue is here?

Has he actually asked for it to be removed?

Current first line:

"Google says it will replace a Google Maps image after a California father complained it shows the body of his teen-age son, who was shot to death in 2009."

EDIT: To remove my own snark as I realized the article was updated. Sorry!

Pretty amazing that something like this is basically a statistical certainty with the amount of imagery we generate of the world.

i would say "rather unamazing"

Is that a popular place for bodies? I swear I can see a body at street level here: https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-12...

The area appears to have a high murder rate, as mentioned in some other news articles.

If the goal is to prevent people from seeing the image, why go to the local news? Now that the story has been picked up by online media, it will go viral.

I doubt he cares about other people seeing it. I think he just wants to be able to use Google Maps in his home town without stumbling on his son's corpse.

Had the satellite flown over earlier this headline might have said 'google maps helps solve murder case'

so sad.

So, has Google actually refused to remove the image? Or just not moved fast enough?

"Barrera said he plans to formally complain to Google and to lobby state lawmakers for their help in removing the image."

Don't believe he's actually asked Google yet to take it down.

Yet he's talked to CNN. I'm willing to bet the causality here went the other way. The reporter got a tip about a murder scene (or whatever it was) on google maps, did a little digging to figure out who it was, called the folks involved, and ran with the first lede that would draw links.

Perhaps, but the article does say he discovered it.

"Jose Barrera, of Richmond, California, said he discovered the image, visible on Google Maps' satellite view feature, last week."

[Edit] Video says learned of.

that's totally what I think too

"Google says it will replace a Google Maps image after a California father complained it shows the body of his teen-age son, who was shot to death in 2009."

Maybe he didn't know how to reach someone in Google? I don't know, why does that matter?

I used to live in this area several years ago. It's really quite a rough area with plenty of shootings and stray bullets to go around. These stories cropped up all the time. I remember discovering at one point that the crime in Richmond was worse than Compton. Not sure if it's still true or not.

Some stats: http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/richmond/crime/

Super sad situation, but this is a classic Streisand effect in the making. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

It sounds like the father's reason for requesting the removal is that it causes him grief, not that he wants fewer people to see it.

Really sad picture. I hope google removes it.

It's a little south of the marker on the map in the article, but it is still on Google Maps.

Okay, ya I just found it as well. It's actually more South-East of the marker, and you have to look for the police car to locate it.

I don't think this is an unreasonable request to remove this map tile, it's a pretty clear image of a dead with cops standing nearby.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Duboce+Ave+%26+Cherry+St,+Ric...

That's it? What a load of fuss over nothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy

Imagine that body was somebody that you loved.

I can empathize, but I would probably ask Google to remove it before going to the news.

Yeah, that part doesn't make sense to me either. Buuut, I'm not in the father's position, so I'll try to reserve some judgement.

They must have changed it, because I'm not seeing it.

I think you need to be using the 45 deg imagery.

And if you rotate the view point you get 4 different snapshots in time.

More police activity. Police activity but no body. And then back to as it was. No activity, no body.

I would post a link, but I have no idea how to do it with the new Google Maps Beta. Much like everything else they've done recently, they've hidden all the functionality with absolutely no benefit, and exposed utterly useless functionality.

They've "fixed" it so that you just copy and paste the URL to share whatever you're seeing in the map. Yes, in some ways, it's not obvious, but mainly because the "obvious" way of sharing the URL didn't work before.

Next to the tracks: http://i.imgur.com/6XFwOq8.jpg

It's been blurred out now (http://imgur.com/1GcROpY).

Also, the new maps interface is very unintuitive. I remember there used to be an option to create a shortlink to an exact coordinate: I can't figure out where that is now. There is a 'Save' button, but I think that just saves it to my local machine. How do I share a location?

that blurry square isn't it, if you travel south for about half a block, you'll see a police car, follow that road forward a bit, and you can see a body, and north of that in the field there is a group of law enforcement.

slightly gruesome screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/bnyNZq5.png

Very sad. The world is a very big place though, this kind of stuff is bound to come up. I do hope the Maps folks take some action.

Right click (option click on Mac?) and select 'What's here'. That gives you exact coordinates under the green arrow, with nearest street address under the pink map pin. In this case it's 37.951592,-122.36045. That may be a 14 year-old boy lying there dead and if true it is a terribly sad thing and I hope it is at least blurred out soon.

Opened these coordinates in 2 browsers, one shows old low res imagery with no body, one shows newer high res imagery with body. My guess/hope is that the older low res imagery is being pushed out and just isn't on all servers yet.

I think the main thing I got out of this story is that Rob Enderle is an ass.

You can just copy and paste the URL to share your current view (should include any markers on the map as well).

Seems like google just updated the map tiles. I saw it 10 minutes ago but it was gone when I refreshed the page.

http://i.imgur.com/VXCTQ17.png

It appears when you use the 45 degree angle option but not the top down satellite option.

I understand the sentiment of the father.. I think it is appropriate for Google to remove it..

Very sad. I feel for the father.

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