Man Gunned Down in Cleveland on Facebook Live on Easter Sunday
Senseless violence took on an entirely new name on Easter Sunday, when a man used Facebook Live to stream the random murder of Robert Godwin, 74 of Cleveland, Ohio. This sick and demented crime is a part of a growing trend on social media and live streaming. For the Godwin family, we can only hope they find the killer and bring him to justice immediately.
On Sunday morning, before he gained an unwanted fame on Facebook as a homicide victim, Robert Godwin, 74, visited his son, Robert Godwin Jr.
“He hugged my wife and me and said ‘I’ll see you guys next time,’” Godwin Jr. told Cleveland.com. “I said ‘OK, enjoy your Easter.’”
The elder Godwin, a retired foundry worker with nine children and 13 grandchildren, was out looking for aluminum cans, which he collected. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A man, whom police later identified as Steve Stephens, approached him.
Just before fatally shooting Godwin in a video uploaded to Facebook, Stephens asked him, “Can you do me a favor? Can you say ‘Joy Lane’?”
“Joy Lane?” Godwin, appearing confused, responded.
“Yeah,” Stephens said. “She’s the reason why this is about to happen to you.”
He raised a gun and pulled the trigger.
The camera spun around. When the picture came back into frame, Godwin’s body was on the pavement, an enormous streak of blood beside him.
The shooter zoomed in with his camera on Godwin’s bloodied face.
“I haven’t watched the video,” Godwin’s son told Cleveland.com. “I haven’t even looked at my cellphone or the news, I don’t really want to see it,” he said.
Godwin was chosen on a whim, by a man looking for attention, or trying to send a sick message to someone else, and perhaps to the world. It certainly seemed Stephens planned it. When visiting his mother Maggie Green on Saturday, he told her, “If you see me again, it’ll be a miracle,” as she recounted to CNN. She hasn’t. Police said he might be as far as Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana or Michigan.
The sudden popularity of live-streaming video services like Facebook Live and Twitter’s Periscope — along with the ability to upload previously shot videos to the platforms — has been increasingly been accompanied by the sharing of violent acts such as slayings, rapes and suicides and even torture. The videos are posted by people seeking attention, even feelings of empowerment. Now, experts worry now about copycat offenders and, worse, people seeking to “one-up” the gruesomeness of the last viral video.
As Cleveland police and the FBI launched a manhunt Sunday, Facebook officials removed the original video of the slaying from its platform.
“This is a horrific crime and we do not allow this kind of content on Facebook,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “We work hard to keep a safe environment on Facebook, and are in touch with law enforcement in emergencies when there are direct threats to physical safety.”
Steve
Steve is an affordable multifamily housing professional that is also the co-founder of Whiskey Congress. Steve has written for national publications such as The National Marijuana News and other outlets as a guest blogger on topics covering sports, politics, and cannabis. Steve loves whiskey, cigars, and uses powerlifting as an outlet to deal with the fact that no one listens to his brilliant ideas.
