Social media user criticized after posting Vancouver Starbucks stabbing videos

After a stabbing that left a man dead in front of a Vancouver Starbucks this week, people are condemning the actions of a social media content creator who took selfie videos with the victim’s body.

Paul Stanley Schmidt was stabbed on the patio of a Starbucks at the intersection of Granville and Pender Streets on Sunday.

His wife and daughter were nearby, and the suspect was arrested shortly after.

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Read more: Stabbing at Vancouver Starbucks leaves one man dead

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CiyNews is not sharing the usernames of the person who took the video, but someone on Twitter says, “the guy who recorded the stabbing in Vancouver, taking a selfie next to the victim’s [sic] body and then returning the next morning to smoke on the crime scene!”

“He exemplifies everything that’s wrong with social media and people nowadays,” another user commented, in part.

The person who took the video also appeared on a local news broadcast, seemingly portraying himself as a distraught bystander. But people have criticized the way he relished shooting the selfie footage with the victim.

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Related video: Bystander effect: psychology expert weighs in on Vancouver stabbing

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Aaron Goodman, a faculty member of the Kwantlen Polytechnic University Journalism and Communications Studies, says it’s disturbing to see a trend of social media creators publishing extreme content to further their own agendas.

“For the person who is apparently centering themselves through this video in the tragedy of a family, I would ask, ‘why? Why do you feel compelled to do that?'” he said.

“I think it’s incumbent on people to take those videos down. Because they’re being used, whether the original people who post them have that intention or not, they may not — but they’re being used by people with nefarious agendas.”

The Vancouver Police Department told CityNews it generally does not comment on what people choose to share online and didn’t comment on the legality of this man’s behaviour.

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Related articles: 

• Fatal stabbing casts a pall over downtown Vancouver neighbourhood as court date set

• Mother of Vancouver stabbing victim devastated: ‘Nobody … called for help’

• Vancouver stabbing ups pressure on governments to address random attacks

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As for the video of the fatal stabbing, a spokesperson from Instagram’s parent company, Meta, tells CityNews it has been removed. It says it’s also taking steps to prevent the video from being uploaded again.

But Meta hasn’t been able to take down every single version of the video.

“Social media companies — they need to do the right thing and take urgent action to take it down, and people as citizens,  there’s no need to center oneself in another family’s tragedy. Just stop it. Period,” Goodman said.