Thirty-seven-year-old Steve Stephens shot and killed 74-year-old Robert Godwin Sr. on Easter Sunday in Cleveland on April 16th, 2017. Steve uploaded the video of his crime to Facebook before he was found dead in Erie, Pennsylvania from a suspected suicide days later.
Robert's family has reportedly taken legal action against the social media platform saying Facebook “was intentional, willful, malicious, in bad faith and in reckless disregard for the right of Mr. Godwin.” The day before Steve killed Robert, he had posted a video on Facebook where he detailed his plans to kill. That particular video stayed active for two hours before being removed. The lawsuit asserts that Facebook should have alerted the police as soon as the video was posted.
Robert's family is seeking $25,000 in damages and legal fees.
Facebook Associate General Counsel, Natalie Naugle, released a statement that reads the following:
“We want people to feel safe using Facebook, which is why we have policies in place prohibiting direct threats, attacks, serious threats of harm to public and personal safety and other criminal activity. We give people tools to report content that violates our policies, and take swift action to remove violating content when it’s reported to us. We sympathize with the victim’s family, who suffered such a tragic and senseless loss.”
