In the late afternoon of January 23, 2020, Roosevelt Rankins, a 34-year-old man from Montgomery, Alabama, was fatally shot while broadcasting on Facebook Live. The incident unfolded in the 2100 block of Stella Street, leaving the community in shock as the harrowing final moments of Rankins's life were witnessed by an online audience.
While sitting in his car, Rankins was ambushed by an assailant.
The Facebook Live video, which stretched for nearly 46 minutes, captured the sound of gunfire, and the phone subsequently dropped. In a desperate attempt to escape, the wounded Rankins tried to drive away but crashed his vehicle a short distance down the road in the 2300 block of Stella Street. First responders who arrived at the scene found him inside the crashed car with a fatal gunshot wound and he was pronounced dead.
The video continued to record after the shooting, capturing the voices of individuals who discovered the dying Rankins, expressing their shock and calling for help. The footage quickly circulated on social media, being viewed hundreds of thousands of times. The victim's father, Roosevelt Rankins Sr., later expressed his belief that his son, a father of five, may have been set up, possibly for a robbery.
Nearly seven months after the tragic event, on August 16, 2020, the Montgomery Police Department announced a significant development in the case. Bakari Ano Taylor, a 19-year-old, was arrested and charged with capital murder in connection with the death of Roosevelt Rankins. The U.S. Marshals Task Force took Taylor into custody. Reports also suggested that there may have been two other unidentified individuals with Taylor at the time of the shooting.
Despite the initial arrest and the high-profile nature of the case, publicly available information regarding the outcome of the legal proceedings against Bakari Ano Taylor is scarce. While one unverified online source from October 2024 mentioned that the person responsible was in prison, there are no official news reports or court records to confirm a trial, conviction, or sentence. The circumstances surrounding the shooting and the current status of the capital murder charge against Taylor remain largely undisclosed to the public.
