Must We Upload Video Of EVERYTHING To Social Media?

Paul Pelton is accused of entering a wrecked car
 to film a dying teen and his severely injured friend.  

Back in July, an Ohio man took our national obsession with filming and posting everything we see to a horrible new low.

According to CNET, Paul Pelton, 41, of Lorain, Ohio saw a terrible crash that badly injured two teens. One of them later died.

Most people, when they see such a crash, would call 911, maybe run over and see if there was anything that could be done to help or rescue the victims.

Several people who saw the crash did exactly that.

Pelton did not. Instead, he took out his cell phone and began filming. As the badly injured teens awaited rescue, Pelton got into the wrecked car and filmed the kids, says Cleveland.com

Creepy and gruesome, no?

In the resulting video, Pelton can be heard referring to the teens in the cars as "idiots," presumably because they were probably speeding before their car crashed into a house.

The police report said Pelton leaned into the car to film the boys, then walked around to the front of the car, and then getting into the back.

He allegedly try to sell the video to local news outlets for some quick cash, but got no takers.

He posted the video on Facebook, but it was quickly taken down.  But here's the scary part: Pelton reportedly got about 4,000 Facebook friend requests after this happened. I'm sure some of them did so to criticize him, but were a lot of them looking for more grisly videos to get off on?

For his part, Pelton later apologized, claiming he only did the video to encourage motorists to slow down.

Right.

Pelton was charged with misdemeanor vehicular trespassing, the only thing prosecutors could find to charge him, Cleveland.com says

I guess we live in a time in which taking a video of everything takes precedence over anything else, including possibly saving a life.

The Lorain Police Department was not impressed with Pelton, that's for sure.

They put out this statement, which you wouldn't think is necessary but in this day and age, I guess it is:

"The Lorain Police Department would like to remind citizens that they are allowed and encouraged to help one another in emergencies if they can do so safely, and that rendering aid or comfort to a dying young man and his severely injured friend is a commendable and kindly act.

Persons are not, however, allowed to trespass into a person's vehicle criminially and without permission for the seemingly singular cause of filming a young man's dying moments, for profit."

Don't get me wrong. I video stuff all the time, and am immersed in social media. Nothing at all wrong with that.

Let's just consider our humanity just a teensy bit first, OK?