By R. Renee Yaworsky
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

 RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil–Disturbing images of dead bodies on Brazil’s streets have been found on the Google service Street View.  The grisly images have sparked concerns about the country’s pervasive homicide problem.

Google’s Street View is now available all over the world, including Antarctica.  While the service has previously captured people in the UK vomiting, and people asleep on Australian sidewalks, Brazil’s lifeless bodies were a first.  The service had only been in Brazil for less than a week before unsettling images of dead bodies were spotted by Street View users who reported them and complained.  Google announced Tuesday that those images have been removed.

Street View is a service that shows random scenes from public streets all over the world.  The fact that so many pictures from Brazil have captured images of dead bodies has created alarm about the surrounding culture.  Many of the photographed bodies were seemingly ignored by passers-by.  Many of the bodies were bloodied or covered in black plastic.

In one snapshot, a man casually uses a public telephone next to a body.  In a photograph of a busy street in Rio de Janeiro, police officers are seen holding back a staring crowd of onlookers. Military vehicles and yellow police tape surround the body.  Another photograph shows a body lying on a street, apparently the victim of a traffic accident or hit and run.

Apart from images of bodies, Street View users have seen other troubling scenes in Brazil.  In one photograph from Sao Paulo, two men roughly grab a third man in an apparent altercation while a passerby glances their way.

A spokesperson from Google has stated that Street View images are “no different to what anyone might expect to see for themselves around the country.  Sometimes that means our cars inadvertently capture odd or inappropriate moments as they drive past.”

The spokesperson stressed that Google is not responsible for depicting the world as it appears, saying, “This is why we have put in place tools so that if people see what they believe to be inappropriate, they can report them to us using the simple reporting tool and the images will be quickly removed or further blurring applied.”

According to information released by the United Nations, over 48,000 homicides occurred in Brazil in 2007.

For more information, please see:

Newser-Google Street View Comes to Brazil, Finds Bodies-7 October 2010

Telegraph-Google forced to remove ‘dead body’ images from Brazil Street View service-6 October 2010

CNET-More bodies (and other strange sights) on Brazil’s Street View-5 October 2010