NC Man Killed on Livestream Minutes After Visiting Police

Douglas Colson, 65, identified as suspect
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 27, 2018 3:03 AM CST
Armed Man Sought in 'Brazen' Murder on Facebook Live
   (Getty Images/carlballou)

Prentis Robinson often used social media to draw attention to crimes including drug dealing in the North Carolina town of Wingate. "I'm trying to keep the neighborhood quiet like this—peaceful," he explained to a Facebook Live audience Monday morning as he walked his neighborhood with a cell phone attached to a selfie stick, reports NBC News. But after he stopped at Wingate Police Department to report the theft of a phone, Robinson’s community became the opposite of peaceful, report WSOC and the Charlotte Observer. Around 10am, 55-year-old Robinson encountered a person just a block away from the police department. "You on Live," he repeated before four shots rang out. Livestream viewers saw Robinson's cell phone fall to the ground, then a figure holding a gun. Robinson died at the scene.

Police are now searching for Douglas Colson, 65, who was questioned and released Monday before new evidence prompted a warrant for his arrest on suspicion of first-degree murder, per the Observer. He's described as armed with a long gun, per WSOC. While Colson's relationship to Robinson isn't known, neighbors fear Robinson's killer was angered by his public airing of suspected crimes, per WCNC. He'd taken "it upon himself to clean up this area," says Police Chief Donnie Gay, who took Robinson's police report only minutes before the fatal shooting. "I can't believe it," he says of Robinson's death. "Only being a block or so away from the police department—if that's not brazen I don't know what is." Precautionary lockdowns at Wingate University and Wingate Elementary School were lifted shortly after the shooting. (More North Carolina stories.)

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