A 28-year old Chicago man live streaming on Facebook was shot dead during his broadcast this week.
The live stream captured his killing. The 14-minute video featured the man drinking and hanging out with friends on a sidewalk, complaining about the heat. Sirens can be heard in the background.
About six minutes into the video, the victim looks out of frame and says “Boy, stop playin.'” Then there about a dozen gun shots.
The cellphone falls to the ground, briefly showing bloodied grass, and screaming can be heard.
“Call the police!” multiple people scream.
The screen goes black, continuing to broadcast for some 30 additional minutes.
A spokesperson from the Chicago Police Department confirmed that the victim was pronounced dead following the shooting.
Antonio Perkins was killed on the evening of Wednesday, June 15, police told the Chicago Tribune.
Detectives have confirmed that the video was connected to the shooting.
“A lot of people loved my son; he was a good person,” Perkins’ father Daniel Cole told KTLA sister station WGN.
Perkins had just been promoted at McDonald’s. He worked almost every day — and Wednesday night was a rare night out.
His friends say he was not the target and not a gang member.
“Stop judging, everybody. Stop judging us like that. His life really did matter,” Tiffany, a friend of the victim, told WGN.
Perkins’ brother was also shot to death several years ago. Perkins leaves behind multiple children under the age of 5, WGN reported.
The shooting came a day after another killing was broadcast live on Facebook’s streaming service.
On Tuesday, an ISIS sympathizer killed a police commander and his partner in France, afterwards, broadcasting his crime live on Facebook and threatening violence at the Euro 2016 soccer championship. The video has since been removed.
A spokeswoman from Facebook acknowledged that the Chicago video streamed live on its service. The video has not been taken down (Facebook will remove a video if it celebrates violence) but all uploads and shares are marked with a user warning.
Facebook Live, which became available to all users in late January, is one of the company’s celebrated features. It give users the ability to broadcast to Facebook through the smartphone app.
It’s part of a larger trend of live streaming apps.
In 2015, Twitter launched Periscope, which encourages users to stream live through their phones. A year later, a teenager was accused of live streaming the rape of her 17-year-old friend live on Periscope.
As they grow in popularity, the live nature of these services has created new challenges when it comes to moderating user content.
