When something seemingly senseless like the killing of Robert Godwin occurs, there are, inevitably, dozens, if not hundreds, of questions that cry out for answers.
Here's one you might not hear anywhere else.
What did you expect?
He was walking home from an Easter meal with his family when the stranger walked up to Robert Godwin Sr.
The two talk briefly before the stranger pulls out a gun and fires.
Now, police are desperately hunting for the man who killed Godwin and uploaded the video on Facebook, while Godwin's friends and family are trying to make sense of the senseless death of the 74-year-old man.
"This man right here was a good man. I hate he's gone. ... I don't know what I'm going to do. ... It's not real," Godwin's son told CNN affiliate WOIO.
The son told the Cleveland Plain Dealer his father was a retired foundry worker. He had 10 children and 14 grandchildren. He enjoyed fishing and often was seen walking around with a plastic bag in his hand as he collected aluminum cans he saw on the ground.
That's what he was doing Sunday in Cleveland's Glenville neighborhood, a shopping bag in his hand.
He had just finished an Easter meal.
He hugged my wife and me and said 'I'll see you guys next time,'" Godwin Jr. recounted. "I said 'OK, enjoy your Easter.'"
In the video, apparently recorded by the suspect, Steve Stephens, a person is getting out of a car in a residential area and says, "Here's somebody I'm about to kill. I'm about to kill this guy right here. An old dude."
The person walks up, stops Godwin on the sidewalk and talks to him. Then the video shows a gun pointed at Godwin's head. The gun is fired. Godwin recoils and falls to the ground.
Police don't think Godwin and Stephens knew each other.
The video was later removed by Facebook, but it was still being widely shared online early Monday.
Ryan Godwin, who said he's a grandson of Godwin's, asked people to stop sharing it.
"Please please please stop retweeting that video and report anyone who has posted it! That is my grandfather show some respect," Ryan Godwin wrote on Twitter Sunday afternoon.
Police are searching for Stephens, calling him armed and dangerous. They believe he's left Ohio and may be in Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana or Michigan. An aggravated murder warrant has been issued for him.
Stephens' mother said her son was randomly shooting people because he was angry at a girlfriend.
Police have not talked about a possible motive behind the shooting of Godwin.
It goes without saying that something this horrific unleashes a myriad of emotions. No one is immune, no one, of course, except for those whose emotional and/or psychological damage is so severe that they could be the next, as yet unknown, killer being "desperately hunted".
Among that laundry list of emotional responses, though, I'm one short. And while this primal insanity on a neighborhood street is the latest, currently most egregious, of the inhumanity of which man is capable, it's certainly not the first.
And it most certainly won't be the last.
Which is why there's an unfilled space on my reactions list.
For a lot of years, now, too many years, in fact, I've said, both in private conversations and broadcast situations that I've seen and heard enough of life by now that there's one bet you don't want to make with me.
Because you can stun me, shock me, appall me, offend me, horrify, outrage, revolt, disgust, disturb, dumbfound, sicken, traumatize, astound, astonish, startle, shake, stagger or wack me with a world class whammy.
But you cannot surprise me.
Nothing, literally, nothing that happens in this life or that one, theoretically human, being can do to another can ever have that affect on me.
The less jaded, less cynical, more glass half full types who share their space with me here on the mortal coil are, no doubt, either alarmed or put off by what surely seems like overt, if not outrageous, pessimism and/or negative outlook.
I'm not surprised they feel that way.
And, just so we're clear, this self assurance that surprise is no longer in my mortal makeup is not a celebration or congratulation, by any means or measure. Not a day goes by that I'm not wholeheartedly, if only silently, looking for that moment of occurrence that changes both my mind and my mindset.
But no one is going to be more surprised than me if that ever happens, at least in the lifetime that I have remaining..
The outrage over this killing is as natural as it is inevitable. After all, we're civilized people living in civilized times in a civilized country.
Right?
Right?
Ay, props to my homey, Hamlet, there's the rub. And the primary explanation of my attitude.
Because while the "idea" of being civilized is both attractive and appealing, the reality of it, at least in so far as life in this year of our Lord, two thousand and seventeen, leaves a Red Sea size lot to be desired.
We drive too fast and follow too closely and rage at those who either block our path to do so or fill their air with profanity should they dare to take us to task for it. We drink too much and eat too much and are then angered and frustrated that there is no rock bottom priced healthcare system to take care of us when our abused bodies begin to fail us. We haven't got a clue about the existence, let alone the contributions to our lives, of people like Maurice Hilleman who developed over 36 vaccines, including those preventing mumps, measles, heps A and B, meningitis and pneumonia; James Harrison who, by donating his unusual blood type over 1000 times has saved over two million unborn babies from Rhesus disease, Tim Berners-Lee, who designed the first Web browser; or Malcolm McClean, who invented the technique of loading entire trailers of product, as opposed to one crate at a time, aboard cargo ships, but, bet the rent money, five in six people on the street know exactly who Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Kylie and Kendall are.
We've made heroes out of Kendra being on top, Mama June kicking Sugar Bear to the curb and the Braxtons hilariously using the term "family values". We think that the wet fart, T&A, scrotal/anal crap that passes for humor from the brain of Seth McFarlane is worth hours of our weekly time.
We push each other out of the way, even knock each other down to get the best bargains mere minutes after we have gathered together to give thanks for the blessings in our lives, we unload our fifty items on the ten item or less conveyor and give people that "fuck you" look if they so much as begin to look like they have a problem with the rudeness.
Chances are we haven't taken a picture of a sunset, youth league ball game or child's first steps in days, even weeks, if at all, but our smartphones are pushing the gigabyte storage limit with the selfies snapped and snapped and snapped...and snapped.
And let's don't even get started on the video clips via Instagram, Snapchat and, of course...say it with me....Facebook live.
We live in a self absorbed, self centered, self interested, self oriented, narcissistic, sociopathic culture.
And last November we elected a self absorbed, self centered, self interested, self oriented, narcissistic sociopath President of the United States.
On Easter Sunday morning, a clearly emotionally and psychologically damaged man, having reached his critical mass of dealing with it, chose a fellow being, at random, to vent his anger, frustration and defect.
He shot that being in the head while recording the killing.
Then he posted the video online.
And the reaction, while inevitable and understandable, was one of outrage and condemnation. Even while many of those outraged and condemning were re-posting the video.
Because that's what we do now.
That's what we've become.
And it's only natural that a horrific act like that would cause us to stop...and ask why.
The thing is....we know why.
The question that remains unanswered is.....
...what did you expect?
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