On Monday, Google announced that that they will expedite the removal of a satellite image of a boy who was killed in Richmond, California near Hensley Street.
Kevin Barrera, 14, was the victim of a homicide and was found slain near the railroad tracks in Richmond California on August 15, 2009. You can view a satellite image of the day that Kevin’s body was found with by-standers and police on scene.
Jose Barrera discovered this image last week and wanted the image removed out of respect for his sons memory. This image has brought back a lot of the feelings of that fateful day. He said, “”When I see this image, it’s still like that happened yesterday.”
Google said Monday that they will remove this image from Google maps, but stated that it it will take several days to do so. This has never taken place since Google maps has gone live. All image revoke requests have had to be removed at the time of updating the image with a new image.
The Vice President of Google Maps said, “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. Our hearts go out to the family of this young boy.” This is a big step for the maps giant Google, after learning the best way to remove an image, they may be able to remove them quicker in the future.
CNN has a video of this story available on their website that can give you a bit more information.
