A suspect is charged with murder in the shooting of a man who filmed his own death on Facebook Live Monday in Wingate, North Carolina.
“He turned himself in this morning,” Tony Underwood, media relations officer for the Union County Sheriff’s Office, said.
Douglas Cleveland Colson, 65, was charged with first degree murder in the death of 55 year-old Prentis Robinson, who was killed just outside of Wingate University’s campus.
Underwood said the motive for the shooting is so far not known, though NBC News reported that a friend of Robinson’s, Chester Sanders, said he repeatedly recorded videos of illegal activities like drug dealing in his neighborhood, and that could have made some local residents angry.
Robinson inadvertently streamed his own death live on Facebook as he walked down the street. He had just been at the police department inquire about a stolen cell phone.
The shooting took place just one block away from the Wingate Police Department, Wingate Police Chief Donnie Gay told NBC News.
“Only being a block or so away from the police department — if that’s not brazen I don’t know what is,” Gay told NBC. “It’s heart breaking. I can’t believe it.”
In the video of the shooting, which Facebook has since removed, Robinson is seen filming with a selfie stick when he is approached by man dressed in dark clothing. “You’re live, you’re live,” Robinson tells the man. Four gunshots then ring out and the phone falls to the ground.
Investigators told WSCO TV that Colson has requested an attorney.