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According to nydailynews.com “The search giant’s street-mapping cameras have caught a strange scene in a Detroit neighborhood, at an address that seems to be the same location where a baby was found dead in a closet earlier this year . . . In several images immortalized on the site’s Street View map function, a group of young men can be seen standing on the porch of a house which is reportedly identical to the home where 17-month-old Zyia Turner was found dead under a pile of clothes in her grandmother’s closet.” Pointing a shotgun at Google’s camera car. Guess who noticed . . .

The eerie Street View shot, noticed by Maryland meteorologist Jacob Wkyoff, shows a group of young men standing on the front porch of the eyes, eyeing the street . . .

Maryland meteorologist Jacob Wykoff, who was recently in Detroit on a business trip, spotted the Google maps image, and said he could hardly believe it.

“I was actually just there in July,” Wykoff said. “It’s certainly uneasy to see that type of stuff, I guess it happens in any major city, but Detroit sort of has a reputation now … That he actually points the gun at him?”

So a MD weatherman somehow noticed an image of a shotgun wielding teen in Detroit (from the billions of images at Google maps), correlated the address with a news story, downed a margarita or two (judging from his syntax) and couldn’t be bothered to Google Michigan gun laws.

To its credit, detroitcbslocal.com sets their readers straight on that whole shotgun pointing thing. Ish.

If the gunman was ever identified, is this a crime?  Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said not necessarily.

Worthy said a lot of questions would need to be answered.”Was it this person’s home? Because you do have a right to bear arms in your home. Certainly it looks like he’s on a porch that’s attached to a home, so that would not be a legal issue. Is this person an adult or a juvenile?”

Worthy said, in certain circumstances, even pointing a gun at someone is not illegal, if you feel threatened.

What is it with anti-gunners, the media and feelings? In this case and generally speaking, you can’t point a gun at someone (or a Google Street View car) if you FEEL threatened. You can only aim a gun at someone if you ARE threatened.

Never mind. It’s all about PR, apparently.

But will this image available to anyone trying to plot out a route in Detroit put another black eye on the city?

Worthy said the image just “adds another layer” to the poor opinion many already have.

Marc Hoffman [ED: who?] wrote on Facebook, “If I was the driver, I would refuse to drive down any of those streets.”

Merry Campbell [ED: who?] hopes Google re-shoots the image for the sake of the city. “It’s a shame the image is being shown,” she wrote on Facebook. “It gives a terrible impression of the city, which already has a bad reputation, as it is. I hope that whoever is in charge at Google maps will reshoot it!

So to speak.

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26 COMMENTS

    • So a MD weatherman somehow noticed an image of a shotgun wielding teen in Detroit (from the billions of images at Google maps), correlated the address with a news story, downed a margarita or two (judging from his syntax) and couldn’t be bothered to Google Illinois gun laws. To its credit, detroitcbslocal.com sets their readers straight on IL gun laws. Ish.

      I wonder if RF downed a margarita or two too?

    • Illinois bought Michigan with some federal bail-out money last spring. The feeling was they could more easily dilute their inner poop if the combined resourses.

  1. Maryland, Michigan, and Illinois. We must find the connection or common denominator. Let’s see: Northern States, Blue States, gun unfriendly states, entitlement welfare states, and more.

  2. Aiming a shotgun off your porch in an urbun enviroment is definately going to get you noticed. If that’s the type of attention you want to draw to yourself. I prefer a more low profile.

    • I think it was probably more the dead baby under a pile of dirty clothes in the closet that got that household noticed more than the aiming a shotgun off the porch thing.

  3. I live in the suburbs of Detroit and I would never have a reason to use google maps or anything else.

    What would be the point? Anything worth going into the city for is right next to the expressway. Though as of late I haven’t even wasted my effort to go to those places since I’ve given up on the city completely.

    • the house is on the “east side” near I-75 and 7 Mile Road. As a former resident who grew up in Detroit, that neighborhood is not one you would go visit without back up and several extra mags. It is a war zone riddle with poverty and the effects of multiple years of democratic rule without expectations for its inhabitants. I have a late great aunt who lived near there before she died 10 yrs ago. Back in the 40’s and 50’s, it was the home of the Black intellectual crowd, full of doctors and lawyers, teachers and govt employees. All changed after the ’67 riots and it went downhill from there. It does make me sad.

  4. This has been up for a while, it’s at 18811 Brinker St.

    it was brought up on urban exploration forums awhile ago, I once google searched the address, it looks like they have a doctors office, medical billing office, and possibly an interior designer in that house…

  5. And looking at the house from above, I count 4 cars, a pickup truck, and a boat parked in the back yard and 4 cars on the curb adjacent the house, must be a happenin’ place.

  6. “Maryland meteorologist Jacob Wykoff, who was recently in Detroit on a business trip, spotted the Google maps image, and said he could hardly believe it.”

    Why the surprise?

    Go to a liquor store, and you’ll probably see a case of beer on the shelf.
    Go to the Middle East, and you’ll likely witness an AK or two.Visit some areas of Chicago and urban America, and you’ll probably have a gun pointed at you in short order. None of these situations should be shocking to thinking people.

  7. You know it’s never occurred to me to stand on my front porch with my AR15, pointing it at random cars passing by. Maybe I’m crazy, but I’d expect an unwelcome response from the police were I to do something so ridiculous and irresponsible.

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