Google Maps will remove an aerial image from a map of northern California that shows the body of a 14-year-old boy who was shot and killed in 2009.
A map of railroad tracks in Richmond, Calif., shows a body lying on the ground, surrounded by a police car and officers. Richmond police confirmed to the San Francisco Chronicle that the body in the image is that of Kevin Barrera. The photo was taken on Aug. 15, 2009, the day of the shooting, and has been used on the map since.
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Google plans to remove and replace the image of the teen with new photos of the area, which is an uncommon practice for the Internet giant.
"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," Brian McClendon, vice president of Google Maps, said in an emailed statement to Mashable.
Oakland, Calif.-based news station KTVU first reported that the teen's father, Jose Barrera, learned about the image last week. He asked Google to pull the image out of respect for his son.
"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.”
Barrera’s case is still open and investigators have not had any new leads in the past year, Richmond Police told KTVU.
Google said it will likely make the change within eight days.
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Image: Flickr, Mooi