An Alabama man distraught over a recent breakup took his own life while streaming on Facebook Live.
According to the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office, 49-year-old James M. Jeffrey shot himself in the head with a rifle Tuesday night.
via NYDN:
Authorities said they received a call around 11 p.m. from a woman worried that Jeffrey may harm himself. Police told AL.com that Jeffrey and an unidentified woman were “in the middle of a breakup and he had stopped responding” to her.
As cops were en route to his home, 911 calls came flooding in about the Robertsdale man shooting himself in the head during a livestream video.
The horrifying footage was viewed over 1,000 times and shared by several people on the social networking site, authorities said. It remained on Facebook for about two hours before it was taken down.
“I hope this isn’t a trend,” assistant chief deputy Anthony Lowery told USA Today. “It’s one thing to commit suicide. It’s another to victimize other people.”
Sadly, this is a trend as Jeffrey becomes the latest to use Facebook Live to stream horrifyingly graphic content.
Earlier this week, a father from Thailand shared a live video of himself killing his infant daughter before taking his own life.
On Easter, Steve Stephens sparked a massive manhunt after he livestreamed himself savagely gunning down 74-year-old Robert Godwin Sr. in Cleveland. Stephens blamed the incident on an ex-girlfriend who had broken up with him.
In an effort to stop people from streaming suicides, Facebook announced last month that it will integrate real-time suicide prevention tools into Facebook Live. It will also offer live-chat support from crisis support organizations to make it easier for people to report suicides or self-injuries.
We don’t even know what to say.
