Prentis Robinson was walking through a neighbourhood in North Carolina after a trip to a police station where he had reported a family member had stolen his phone.
The 55-year-old was using a selfie stick to do a Facebook Live as he was returning home, but on his journey, he came across a man and was savagely murdered.
When he was approached by the unknown man, he said: "You're on live."
Four gunshots rang out and Robinson dropped to the ground, all while his Facebook Live continued to stream to the social networking site. Viewers saw a man with a long-barrelled weapon step over camera as he escaped.
The shooting, which happened around 10am, sparked concern at nearby Wingate University, sending the facility into lockdown. Students said they ducked under their tables and used other furniture to block doors out of fear that the shooting was happening inside their building
The Wingate Police Department issued an arrest warrant for man named Douglas Colson, with the suspect being questioned on Monday and subsequently arrested.
Wingate Police Chief Donnie Gay revealed he would have been one of the last people to see Prentis alive, telling WSOC: "I'd just spoke to him, it was, I just...it's hard to say anything about that. I just got through talking to him."
Authorities are still trying to work out what sparked the shooting, with Gay adding: "Only being a block or so away from the police department - if that's not brazen I don't know what is.
"It's heart breaking. I can't believe it."
People who knew Mr Robinson fear it could have been a result of his Facebook Live videos, which he did regularly as a way to highlight issues in his community, like drug dealing.
Mugshot of suspect Douglas Colson
Friend Chester Sanders told NBC: "If people don't like it and they get angry, at some point in time it will start and something will happen.
"I don't know if this was the reason for...this tragedy to happen but it happened."
A spokesperson for Facebook says the video has been taken down for obvious reasons, telling CBS: "Because we cannot have known that the victim would have wanted this horrific act to be live streamed on social media, we have removed the original video."
The social networking site has had to deal with several issues relating to it's unfiltered live streaming service. Several people have been filmed either being murdered or dying, with Facebook saying that it's still trying to work out how to keep the essence of the live feature while preventing videos like Robinson's from being uploaded.
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Topics: America, News, Facebook live, Social Media, Murder
